OT: Blue Poppy/Jacobean Lily


Anna Mae wrote:
>I envy you to be able to grow the blue poppy.  We've spent $$$ and never
got a seed to
>germinate.

and 

Dana Squires wrote:
>I am waiting for them show some growth but the spot is bare this year. I
will grieve >the loss of the poppies if they don't show.

Blue Poppies (Meconopsis betonicifolia, M. grandis or M.horridula) all need
light shade, deep woodland soil, lots and lots of well rotted leaf mold,
even moisture and low ph ie no calcium.  Most are short lived, some are
biennial.  I find seed is easy to germinate if you keep the seed trays at or
near 50F until there are 3-4 sets of leaves, use ultra sterile soil and
drench with 'No Damp' or some other fungicide regularly for some reason
Meconopsis are really susceptible to dampoff.

Jacobean Lily (Sprekelia formosissima...from Mexico), after all the
discussion on this plant I went to my jar of outdated seed (1993 and
earlier) and fished out what I thought were dead S. formosissima seed.  The
seeds were from a plant I had in the house for years, bloomed once set seed,
then I chucked the bulb after 3 years.  I floated the old seed in a glass of
water for 1-2 weeks, saw to my amazement a root! I then transferred all the
seed to  glass bowl where I placed the seeds on some moist african violet
soil and covered the bowl with plastic wrap.  80% of the seeds formed roots
and I potted them up and now some are 2" tall.  I think the success with
this plant comes from giving it a rest after flowering...letting it dry out
and die back, them after 6-8 weeks start watering and perhaps get it to
bloom. I will try this  with the new batch I just started.

As everyone can now guess I have nothing better to do that answer OT stuff
while patiently waiting for my irises to do something.

have a great day,

Anne
___________________
Anne Savannah, Alberta Canada, zone3b(mintemp -40C)   savannah@cadvision.com
Draba's, Primula's, species Tulip's and Pulminaria's now in bloom, Martagon
lilies 2' out of ground, irises 'slow' .... 31C last week, 5C today, some
snowflakes, sob
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