The amazing blue poppy

By planting the dazzling Himalayan blue poppy, gardeners in Western Washington are in the enviable position of being able to see bits of blue sky and sunshine in their flower beds no matter how heavy the cloud cover. Consider it compensation for the endless months of gray skies in the maritime Northwest.

The flowers of some species of Meconopsis are among the truest blue colors in the garden. Blooms up to 4 or 5 inches wide have paper-thin, crinkly sky-blue petals opening around a cluster of glorious gold stamens.

"It's an unreal blue. Whenever you see this flower, it's amazing," said Richie Steffen, nursery manager for the Rhododendron Species Botanical Garden in Federal Way, where about 100 Himalayan blue poppies thrive in the same moist, woodsy conditions that make rhodies happy.

Steffen cautioned, however, that the blue poppy "is a finicky plant."

The notoriety of the plant is enough to keep many gardeners from trying it. At Wells Medina Nursery in Medina, perennial buyer Lisa Davis said customers who are less experienced gardeners will hear the cautionary advice about growing them and then "they'll just look the other way and walk past." But the more experienced gardeners snap them up so quickly it's hard to keep Meconopsis in stock.

Is the notoriety justified? "They're actually quite easy to grow here," said Carl Elliott, who grows several species of Meconopsis with Kara Evans for their Mount Vernon wholesale nursery, Northwest Perennials. He gave a lecture, "Taking the Myth out of Meconopsis," earlier this month for the Northwest Horticultural Society in Seattle.

"The main problem is getting good soil preparation and not letting them dry out," Elliott said in an interview.

Nonetheless, volunteers at the Bellevue Botanical Garden must replace the short-lived Meconopsis every few years, noted Bob Lilly, co-chair of the Northwest Perennial Alliance and crew leader for maintaining the garden's perennial border. But the plant is so lovely it's worth the effort.

"You should grow a Meconopsis at least once in your lifetime," Lilly said.

But don't count on its becoming a heritage plant to be enjoyed by future generations. While the blue poppy will return as a perennial, most gardeners will find it exhausts itself and dies in five to seven years, even with coddling.

Asian mountain beauties

Besides its extraordinary blue color, the flower's romantic, exotic history adds to its allure. One can imagine early plant explorers scrambling through Nepal and China and suddenly encountering drift upon drift of swaying, incredible blue flowers.

Of the 40-plus species in the genus, all but one are native to the Himalayas or Western China. (The cheerful yellow- or orange-blooming Welsh poppy, Meconopsis cambrica, is a Western Europe native. Yellow, red and white also characterize the blooms of some of the other Asian species.)

The first description of the most famous of the blue poppies, M. betonicifolia, was published in 1889 following French missionary J.M. Delavay's botanical exploration at 10,000 feet in China's Yunnan province. But it wasn't until 1924-25 that seeds arrived in England, were successfully grown and became a horticultural sensation. Influential garden writer Vita Sackville-West called blue poppies "the dream of every gardener."

Within the decade, blue poppies were growing at The Butchart Gardens near Victoria, B.C. The garden claims to have 1,000 blue poppies with bloom beginning in mid- to late May.

Find the right site

Lakewold Gardens in Lakewood, Pierce County, bills itself as the place "where the blue poppy grows." The 10-acre estate on Gravelly Lake, preserved as a nonprofit heritage garden for public tours, traditionally has had wide swaths of the eye-popping blooms along its woodland borders.

But frustrated gardeners, take heart: Even Lakewold has had difficulty keeping its Meconopsis surviving from year to year. Some years, they've had to buy all new plants, resigned to treating them more like annuals than the perennials they are in the wild.

Another way to look at their experience is that the Lakewold staff has had ample opportunity to explore various garden sites for the plants. They seem to have found the right conditions. Garden horticulturalist Claudia Riedener observed that most made it through this winter. Plus, for the first time, transplants from seeds sowed on site will be put out this year.

"Put (Meconopsis) in the coolest spot you can find, and make sure it's never going to dry out," Riedener said.

All who grow the beauties recommend trying to duplicate the plant's conditions in the wild:

-- Cold winters are OK. Most sources say Meconopsis is hardy to U.S. Department of Agriculture hardiness Zones 6 to 8, which means they can handle below-freezing temperatures. Premier Meconopsis author George Taylor writes, "I have never heard of a Meconopsis being killed by winter cold.") Masses of Meconopsis thrive, in fact, in Anchorage and Edmonton.

-- Summer drought brings doom. In the high Asian mountains, Meconopsis experiences summer monsoons - far different from the Northwest's typically dry summers. The solution for growing here, then, is twofold: Water with overhead or drip irrigation to keep the soil moist at all times but not sodden. And, most important, pick a site that has lots of composted manures or municipal compost in it. Carl Elliott says to work in 6 to 10 inches of organic material before planting.

-- Excellent drainage is essential. While the plant needs summer moisture, it can't tolerate sogginess. Pick a site with well-drained, sandy soil, or - if it's not gritty enough - amend the soil with 3 inches of gravel, in addition to the compost or manure.

-- Pick an open site in bright or dappled shade.

-- Side-dress with a high-nitrogen fertilizer several times during the growing season. Meconopsis are heavy feeders, Elliott said, and he recommends an organic lawn fertilizer.

Horticultural tough love

The first year you put a blue poppy nursery plant into the garden, or put out a ready-to-flower plant grown from seed, be prepared to cringe.

You really shouldn't let it bloom the first year. That lusted-after, heart-stopping blue flower? Don't even think about seeing it.

Snip, snip.

Cut the flower stalk as soon as it develops. If you can't bear the sacrifice, then at least steel yourself to cut the stalk immediately after getting a peek of blue, before the plant sets seed.

"That's the hardest thing to do," said the rhododendron garden's Steffen.

Elliott offers a more moderate opinion: "If you have good soil preparation and a plant that comes from a healthy seed strain from vigorous perennial plants, then it's not absolutely necessary to pluck that first year's flowers - however, it does help."

The reason is that the blue poppy flower stalks emerge from a single rosette of leaves; after bloom, that specific rosette will die. The plants of some Meconopsis species are able to grow new and multiple rosettes for the next year's bloom. But growers have found, during that first year in the garden, if the plant blooms and sets seed, it exhausts its energy and will not reliably produce new offshoot rosettes.

It's not a hard-and-fast outcome. Species vary in how readily they grow multiple rosettes. Some species are truly what's called monocarpic: They bloom once and die. (M. horridula is a striking example of this, although it is said to readily self-sow.)

Don't count on getting a multiple-rosette strain, however, because of confusion in labeling among some commercial growers (what is labeled M. grandis might actually be M. x sheldonii or M. betonicifolia, for example). So, plucking the bloom the first year is considered the safest way to ensure flowers in the future.

The approach Lakewold's Riedener recommends is to put in bunches of plants, pluck the flower stalks on half of them, enjoy the blooms on the rest and collect their seed (or hope they will self-sow on the ground).

"They like to be in groups," she said. "If they're all by themselves, they don't create the microclimate they need."

Elaine Keehn, whose Stone Hollow Farm in Sammamish was featured in several garden tours last year, has five species of Meconopsis in her garden and is waiting to see which will bloom again so she can compare their colors.

Which is her favorite?

"Well, I'm for anything that'll come up again," she laughed.

Kristine Moe can be reached at 206-748-5722.

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Pick your poppy

Here are several stellar species of blue Meconopsis that you might find in larger local nurseries. The precise shade of blue can vary within each species, depending on garden conditions (more acidic soil is said to produce a more intense blue).

M. betonicifolia, Himalayan blue poppy. The most famous blue poppy, and the one that many gardeners say is easiest to grow. Flowers are 3 to 4 inches wide on stems that are 2 to 4 feet tall.

M. grandis. Deep blue flowers, perhaps with some purplish tones, up to 6 inches wide on stalks that are 3 to 5 feet tall. Difficult to set seed, so this is harder to find.

M. x sheldonii, a hybrid of the above two, and the most reliably perennial of the large blue poppies. It tends to produce multiple rosettes.

M. horridula (prickly blue poppy), a lovely plant despite its name, with deep blue/reddish nodding blooms and pronounced spines on the leaves and stems. Self-sows readily, but plants do not live past their first flowering.

M. quintuplinervia (harebell poppy), forms a perennial spreading low mat of small, pale lavender blooms.

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Where to see blue poppies

Blue poppies come into bloom about mid-May and usually peak in June, depending on the weather and species. Here are a few public gardens where you can see them:

Bellevue Botanical Garden, 12001 Main St., Bellevue (425-452-2750).

Lakewold Gardens, 12317 Gravelly Lake Drive S.W., Lakewood (253-584-4106).

Rhododendron Species Botanical Garden, Weyerhaeuser Headquarters Campus, 2525 S. 336th St., Federal Way (253-661-9377).

Three gardens in British Columbia are particularly noted for their displays: The Butchart Gardens near Victoria, the University of British Columbia garden and VanDusen Botanical Garden, both in Vancouver.