Meconopsis baileyi (was betonicifolia) ^{AGM AM}

Papaveraceae

Meconopsis betonicifolia

Habitat: cool, part shade, not too dry Flowering: early summer Height: 1 m Width: 50 cm Soil: rich, with lots of humus

The famous blue poppies include three species, some hybrids, and not all blue! The plants we offer should all be perennial (so long as they are not allowed to flower in their first year), slowly increasing to form clumps. From the winter buds at ground level emerge hairy leaves, longer and more pointed in Meconopsis grandis than in M. betonicifolia. The tall stems, each carrying many large poppy flowers, grow rapidly, to start blooming usually in early June, with the show lasting well over a month.

Meconopsis baileyi (was betonicifolia) is a good blue form, and includes offspring from plants raised from seed collected on the Doshong La in Tibet a few years ago.
2 litre pot £8.50

		Meconopsis 'Ascreavie' is a member of the George Sherriff Group of blue Meconopsis and was named after the house to which he retired after many years in political service. It is a perennial blue-flowered poppy with distinctive propeller-shaped petals.
		Meconopsis baileyi var. alba is a white-flowered strain, which we have had for many years, reliably perennial.
		Meconopsis baileyi 'Hensol Violet' is a strain with violet flowers.
		Meconopsis 'Huntfield' is an excellent variety in the George Sherriff group, flowering just a little later than most of the blue poppies, and with a hint of purple shading the rich blue flowers. It was a major feature of our display at Chelsea in 2011, and was keenly sought after by those who saw it.
		Meconopsis 'Lingholm' (Fertile Blue Group) is one of the strains of blue-flowered hybrids with fertile seed and producing perennial plants. Most cultivated plants called Meconopsis grandis (except those recently introduced from Sikkim) and Meconopsis x sheldonii should now go under this name. It has distinctive rusty brown hairs on the stems and new leaves, and the seed pods are long and narrow, like those of Meconopsis grandis, and unlike the fat ones of Meconopsis betonicifolia.