Meconopsis Sheldonii
Meconopsis Sheldonii a truly magnificent hardy perennial. Planted in the woodland garden it always grabs the attention of visitors.
Deep rich to pale blue flowers in late Spring, early Summer. This beautiful flowering hardy perennial, often described as short lived fairs much better in the cooler Aberdeenshire climate and will indeed survive and give pleasure for many years.
Although not related to Papavar this plant is commonly known as the blue poppy. Meconopsis definitely grows best where summer tends to be cool and damp, no problem there then.
If you are brave enough, get the plant off to a really good start by removing the flowering stems in the first year, it will pay dividends in years to come.
Hardiness – Fully hardy
Soil – Humus rich, well drained, neutral/slightly acidic
Position – Partial shade, shelter from cold drying winds
Height – 90/120cm – 3/4ft
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I did not realise until recently just how much importance bloggers placed on photography. Many, if not most of you write with clarity and style and such outstanding pictures that makes me now spend just a little too much time in front of this screen.
My gardening hobby which is shared with equal passion by my wife has never diminished in the past forty years. Photography however, I have not taken too seriously, in fact the pictures which I post have been shot with one of the original digital cameras with only 2.5 mp. Since the purchase of my new camera my enthusiasm has reached child like proportions. This latest toy is not exactly professional standard but it has 12mp and is a Lumix TZ8 known as the DMC ZS5 in the states. There are a few things which I need to first check out. For instance the picture size.
Should I use,
4000 x 3000 – 12m–2560 x 1920 – 5m or 640 x 480 – 0.3m Now I am getting conflicting advice, some say they would never compromise quality and would always use the first setting. Problem is my use will be mainly for my blog and it seems to recommend the use of the third setting which unfortunately is said to be the poorest quality. I have a preference for a size of 800 x 600 and was thinking of using the top size and then reduce them using photoshop or picnic. Bit of a messing about and also would it then make the quality as poor as the third setting by doing this anyway.
Purdee on her favourite spot.
© 2011 – 2015, Alistair. All rights reserved.
I love the blue poppies and have tried starting seed and buying the plants – they just don’t love me back, so I have to enjoy them in other people’s gardens. Very nice photo.
Wow, am I ever impressed… growing meconopsis is considered the ultimate gardening achievement by many who garden here in the states… I do recognize that climate is a huge factor with them, but none the less… this is a two ‘wow’ response.
As far as photography, I always take my photos at the highest resolution as you never know how you may want them to be used in the future… for example, I like creating/’publishing’ ‘books’ that I share with others as gifts. When it comes time to post photos on the blog, I always ‘sign’ the photos in photoshop, resave to i-photo, resize the photo so as to allow them to load much more quickly and not take up so much space… this is simple and reasonably quick to accomplish on my Mac computer. Larry
Definitely a climate thing Larry as Meconopsis grows well here. Thanks for the photo info.
Hi Alistair, you are clearly blessed with a north Scottish climate, the blue poppy struggles to survive down here in southern England. Regarding photos I would agree with Larry, shoot big but upload small to quicken the time it takes for folk to open your post…lovely photo of your cat, he looks very cosy!
Mike, thanks for the information.
Dear Alistair, I know that it is wrong to ‘covet thy neighbour’….but, oh how I should love to be able to grow the elusive [for me] Blue Poppy. I am not surprised that your Meconopsis stop visitors in their tracks, for I am always in awe when I see these glorious plants. In fact, it is true to say that, to date, I have always seen the best examples in Scotland where there seems to be no difficulty in producing drifts of them………I can but dream……
Dear Edith, with comments like these, its time for me to stop complaining about the Scottish weather.
Alistair, Now I am really upset with you for telling us about growing this blue poppy so nonchalantly as if it happened every day—it’s worse than bragging outright. Of course, you are aware that we couldn’t even think of growing this plant in most of the US, including the mid-Atlantic where I garden. What will you highlight next, blue corydalis? Please take pity on us. (You know I am joking of course.) Carolyn
Carolyn, yes we have had the blue corydalis a number of years ago now. we removed it because we did not think it was all that special. You have encouraged me to give it another go.
Alistair I love blue and I love flowers but a cat wins out for me every time, I love her chosen spot,
re photos I think it is persomal choice at what mp you shoot at and can vary depending on what you are taking, up load at a low mp not only so that web pages load quicker but also to stop unscrupulous people printing your photos as their own, signatures can be erased by clever computer people, it’s harder to increase photo quality for print, Frances
Frances, thanks for the photo suggestions.
I’d just like to echo others in saying that this lovely plant can be difficult to establish down here. Glad to know it’s doing well for you 🙂
And enjoy your camera and your new found love for photography!
+1 for “jealous gardener”!! Beautiful plant, such a vivid blue.
Also +1 for shoot at highest resolution and then convert for uploading. I shoot in .raw format too, so that I don’t get any image compression until I am processing the shots. I then use Adobe Photoshop Elements to tweak the .raw shot if necessary and then resize the images. I always keep the original, then if I am uploading to the blog do any cropping etc. then convert to 92dpi (highest resolution you need for a screen currently) and whatever size I need for where it is to go. I have a Panasonic FZ30. If I am using the photo for e.g. a birthday card I savea copy at a higher resolution so as not to lose detail or gain noise. Enjoy!
Janet, thanks for all the useful information.
Great photo Alistair, hope yours are doing well this year.
Hi Cat, some of the plants which I feature were in the garden in previous years. This one eventually burned itself out, but I am going to make a point of planting new ones this year.