The first time I saw a
blue poppy was on a trade magazine
and it was right on the cover
and it was just so blue and so vibrant.
I really enjoyed
watching visitors
come in and see those flowers.
But I think because they're
they're so rare, that a lot of people
may know about them,
but not get the chance to see them.
I always hear
how much the guests love these
and they're always taking pictures,
and it's the only place that you're able
to see these on display.
It seems to have a real draw
for the photography part of it
to get the perfect picture
of one of those blue flowers.
I think the blue color of the flowers
makes these poppies so special
that it was like,
How is this even possible in nature?
I'm Jim Harbage and I lead the Floriculture
and Conservatory
team here at Longwood Gardens.
I'm Patty Stefanick.
I'm a Senior Grower at Longwood Gardens.
I grow a lot of the seasonal pot crops
for the conservatory and in the gardens.
So the blue poppy is a perennial.
These are occurring in
the Himalayan areas
Nepal, Bhutan
on the border between India and Tibet.
You know, when I think of the Himalayas,
I just have this picture of snow
and mountains and freezing cold.
But we have to kind of
remember that if you think of latitude,
it's about the same as Orlando, Florida.
So imagine
a tall mountain range
in Orlando, Florida.
And that's what you're looking at
with Meconopsis.
And there are
these alpine meadows
at those high altitudes. Very moist.
They get good rain during that
growing season, which is pretty short.
When we receive the plants
they are about a year old.
We have to put them into a dormancy
in order to initiate the flowering.
When we receive them,
we unwrap them
and we pot them up into our soil.
But after they are potted up,
we will put them onto carts
and then we'll push them into a cooler,
which is set at 35 degrees
and we leave them in there
for nine weeks, at the least.
After those nine weeks,
we bring them out into a greenhouse
where the temperature ranges between 35
and 45 degrees.
We use these additional grow
lights on them
to increase the amount of light
that they'll get
because we're growing up
during short days
and kind of low light intensity
time of the year here,
which is different than they're
native bright summer sunlight.
So we add that light in there
to really make them as strong
a plant as we can
and we get the best flower size.
Once I start to see color
crack on the buds,
we will start loading them up,
get them on our box truck
and deliver them
straight to the conservatory.
The way we display the Meconopsis,
because their display
life is fairly short,
we want to maximize it.
So we'll put them in the conservatory
planting beds and they'll be mixed in
so they really kind of stand up
above some shorter material.
But we can spread them out a bit
that way,
and it does somewhat simulate
if you were to see them in a meadow,
which is where they grow naturally.
If I found these in nature
and had no idea what they were,
I would be astounded.
They're just incredible plants
and their color is unparalleled.
I think one of the greatest
sort of rewards
I've gotten over the years
with the Meconopsis
is having that opportunity
to take a plant that was pretty obscure
and rare and unusual,
develop it into a display that we can put
in our conservatories
consistently year after year after year,
so that people who might never see it
anywhere else get that opportunity
to see something
that is as special as the Meconopsis.