Gardening Scotland, 2010

For the fourth year running The Meconopsis Group had a stand at Gardening Scotland, once again painstakingly and tastefully designed by Geoff Hill, and assembled and manned by Geoff and a number of members. It was gratifying that the display received a Silver Gilt award from the Royal Caledonian Horticultural Society. The display featured the usual array of fine photographs of different species and cultivars of Meconopsis as a backdrop to the stand and large clumps of big blue poppies in pots, supplied by Evelyn Stevens to the sides in front. A new dimension this year was the selling of Meconopsis seed and this proved to be very popular with the public. The seeds sold "like hot cakes"! Let us hope that as a result, there will be a big increase in Meconopsis growing amongst Scottish gardeners in the years to come - which, after all, is a major part of our mission.

Report of special meeting on 9 May 2010

Details of this special and important meeting held at the RBGE were circulated more widely to give The Meconopsis Group members and others the opportunity to hear two talks by Toshio Yoshida, the eminent plant photographer and field botanist from Japan. We were very privledged to receive this visit from Toshio to whom we are particularly grateful for the many and varied wonderful photographs he has so freely allowed us to include on this website. As anticipated, the meeting was very well attended and much appreciated. The general title of Toshio's talks was "Photographing plants in wildest China with the main emphasis on Meconopsis". In the first talk, Toshio spoke on "Remotest northwestern Yunnan (2006-2009)" and in the second on "More in Yunnan, and in Mianning, southwestern Sichuan (2009)". Toshio reported two new species that he has found and published and two more that he is convinced are also new, but not yet published. At lunch-time there was the opportunity to look around the Royal Botanic Garden, and in particular to see how the recent plantings of a number of big blue poppy cultivars are thriving.

Report of meeting on 6 March 2010

This meeting at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, was very well attended and greatly enjoyed by all. Our numbers seem to be increasing as the years go by, which is very pleasing. Chris Grey-Wilson spoke again on his progress for a new monograph on the genus Meconopsis that he is writing, and to be published in the not too distant future. In his presentation, Chris spoke on "Taxonomy of the large blue poppies: trials and tribulations". One important topic was to explain his proposal to restore the name M. baileyi to the plant discovered in SE Tibet, introduced into cultivation from there, and well known for decades as M. betonicifolia. The species originally named M. betonicifolia is native to NW Yunnan and according to Chris is a species, distinct from M. baileyi. (See MM. baileyi & betonicifolia reclassification.)

In his second profusely illustrated presentation Chris discussed the complexity of the "horridula" group of small blue poppies. Many species which were recognised prior to George Taylor's monograph of 1934 and which has been the "bible" on Meconopsis taxonomy until the present day, were "lumped" by Taylor under M. horridula. Chris said that most of these have now been restored by him and he discussed the reasons in some detail. Since Taylor's time there has been much further exploration with attendant greater understanding, and even now new species are being discovered. The advent of digital photography has been a big boon in elucidating the taxonomy of this group of plants which occurs over a huge area, not only in latitude and longitude, but also in altitude. Chris acknowledged the many people who had let him have photographs for his talks.

The third major contribution to the day's proceedings was an excellent presenation by Paul Egan on "New findings from Nepal". The talk entailed three main topics related to recent research into Meconopsis of Nepal, both from field and herbarium studies. These topics included an advanced preview of two new species, an investigation into the distribution of some little known Meconopsis of Nepal, and a brief examination of morphological diversity within several species. A pdf version of the talk with some illustrations has been provided by Paul and is available to members in the Members' area. We look forward to details of the two new species when these are published.

Trial of Perennial Blue Poppies for the Award of Garden Merit

Following a number of years of negotiations, we are pleased that the Royal Horticultural Society has undertaken to conduct a trial of a range (23 in total) of the big perennial blue Meconopsis cultivars to assess them for the Award of Garden Merit (AGM). This award, by an appropriate RHS committee, may be given to a plant after a period of trial. The purpose of the award is to help gardeners choose plants judged for their all-round garden value. The Meconopsis trial is to run from 2010 - 2013. The trial has been set up at Harlow Carr. Also, for comparisons to be made in a range of different growing conditions, two other RHS gardens (Wisley and Rosemoor), together with Holehird in Windermere and a private garden in central Scotland are growing the same range of cutivars. At present the only big blue perennial poppy hybrid with an AGM is M. 'Slieve Donard'.

Meconopsis-rich Gardens
For a directory of gardens in which a variety of Meconopsis are growing, please consult the supplementary page Meconopsis-rich Gardens. Most of these gardens are open to the public and two are in Canada.