Anyone growing poppies in the Rockies?

Oh, criminee, do I ever need that class! My camera has a g'zillion unused, secret functions.

Well, I'm afraid it would take an air-conditioned greenhouse to grow Meconopsis poppies here. These were Meconopsis betonicifolia from J.L. Hudson. Maybe I should take the poppies up to Soferdig. It's not much more humid west of the divide, but at least they get a bit more rain!

It is with great sadness that I report the passing of 'Bobbie Blue" the blue himalayan poppy. He simply did not thrive and has now disappeared. Hopefully he is happy in poppy heaven. I left his little tag in the bed as a little tribute to his pluckiness for surviving a winter here.

You have my sympathies. Since he is Himalayan, perhaps he will reincarnate!

How sad. We will all mourn his passing. Other members of this forum have had him die on them as well. I guess the North American continent is missing something that they have in the Himalayas.

Guess who has more seed to try again? ^_^ You get three strikes til you're out in my garden and seed is cheap. I sent a message to the friend who gave me Bobby to see how her's are doing.

There really are places in North America where you can grow them. None of them are in the Rockies, though. It's more like the Alaska coast and the Washington coast. Cool, wet summers and mild winters. Weezingreens has them at her place.

My three are still alive in their little pots, but they aren't growing much. I'm going to bring them inside for the scorcher weeks of summer.

picante glad to hear yours are still hanging in. I wonder if they would do better for us if planted near a water feature? Maybe worth a shot? (I just KNEW there was a good reason that I have to have a water feature ^_^ )

OH, what a bummer!!! You and Bobby Blue were my hope. Finicky little fellar. I'm at strike two. I get one more right????

You get as many as you want, actually. Maybe it would be simpler to organize a "poppy trek" to the Himalayas. Or build an air-conditioned greenhouse and decorate it with pictures of 20,000-ft. peaks, and bring the oxygen level down a bit?

What kind of water feature do you want, Dahlia?
Could you imitate a monsoon?

I think it was totally all my fault upfor cuz I had him in too much sun. I'm not giving up. ps I change my rules to fit the obsession LOL. BIG NOTE: picante still has 3 babies on the grow . I think the Bobby Juniors in more shade will be survivors. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

LOL picante we only have the Joon Moonsoon and then nadda. No/little snow anymore. Very scary. I'm looking at pondless water features because we have serious drought problems and I try to be waterwise. It will be a small fall out of the bowl of a tree (I have a natural bowl in my mayday tree already) but should raise the humidity and mositure. I'm thinking there might be MIST!! I can totally do cool nights and with MIST it just might work. Maybe if I added a sherpa guy?

You could dress up like a sherpa! I'd like my garden to be more like a tropical jungle, since it looks "third world" anyway. ( But, that is mostly due to the condition of the house and the pink and blue paint on the walls, not the plants.) I could just go about in my bathrobe. It is batik fabric!

Pink and blue house! Very cool. Too dry here to ever be tropical. I guess when you live in NM the Sante Fe look is boring for you. I on the otherhand have my "Sante Fe" rockery built and my "Sante Fe" sitting area planned to go with it. I luv that look. I need to come visit and get some local pottery still. Of course the plants aren't very desertish LOL

Come on to NM and we will show you all the best pottery places -- and that goes for all of you Rocky Mt. Gardeners. Santa Fe is very charming and has lots of good restaurants.

Yea, i hear about the food. I'd come back 15 pounds heavier. I have a good friend who just got back from Santa Fe and she said she mostly ate and shopped. Sounds dangerous..

Now we are getting in to the "festival" season. This weekend is the Folk Art wing-ding at the museums. Then Spanish Market. Then Indian Market. And, finally, Fiesta! Lots of opportunities to spend money!

And eat! Santa Fe is full of tourists and wagons selling indian tacos, red and green chile dishes, tamales, and more things than I can recall. Also, there are the usual great restaurants -- in many price ranges. It is a great time of year to be in Santa Fe. Los Alamos, where I live, is very nice, but except for the Science and Historical museums and a lot of great scenery isn't much to see without a guide. Like me, for instance. I often give friends tours of the area and enjoy it as much as they do.
Santa Fe is a great and famous place. Los Alamos is a famous place, with some fascinating sight seeing and magnificent scenery, but finding a good restaurant is easier in Santa Fe.

I have a very good restaurant across the street from my house! We had a big rain last night and all yesterday from 4:30 0n.

My poppy patch is starting ^_^

This is 'flemish' antique' I think although it is showing alot of purple?

Oh, dalhia, no wonder you have been on pins and needles waiting for these to bloom. They are lovely. Are they annuals or perennials?

Dahlianut,
Nice poppies!

My big rectangle is finally in full roar with poppies. It is around 1700 square feet if I remember correctly but I have some sunflowers across the back of it.

These are from today.

I grow a lot of Shirley poppies that have white centers or white edges.

These red ones with the white centers are my favorites.

Mixed with a bit of flax they really smile at you!

Dahlia and Mulch, what gorgeous poppies!

Luvly, luvly mulch. I have to try the Shirleys again and see if they will self seed. Most of the ones I have roybird are self seeding annuals.

Mulch, you are the queen of poppy growers in the US -- dalhia is the reigning Canadian queen. I love them mixed with blue flax. I am going to have to put out some more blue flax. Great idea.

Here's a pic of Eschscholzia c. "Jersey Cream". My browser is showing it a bit more yellow than it really is.

That's a very pretty one. I love the foliage on these ones. I must get more colours of these methinks.

Picante,
Really pretty flowers! Don't worry about how the color looks exactly, it is going to look different on each monitor anyway as hardly anybody has a calibrated monitor.

My poppies got hammered with the storm last night. It was blowing roof pieces and shed pieces all over town and taking trees down.

The wind made what the deer had stomped down look mild by comparison, the whole middle of the big rectangle is lying down flat. Sigh. Right at peak bloom. This is a tough year for gardening here!

It knocked over some stout sunflowers and broke a branch off our nice ash tree in front of the house. Otherwise we are fine.

Maybe they will spring back mulch??? Are there little ones still to come? Sounds like it was really bad though sigh. Glad to hear everyone is ok.

Some of the sunflowers are springing back, but poppies do not spring back when flattened. They just bloom lying down, which is not great for photography. They also are lying down in the paths so I cannot even get into the middle of the garden anymore, unless I want to create more damage.

Neighbors said we had winds reported up 90 mph. I believe it, seeing what it did to the town. Probably ruined some planes at the airport as the bad west winds tend to do that, but have not heard yet.

I don't know where the new restuarant sign went. The Reel Decoy finally got a nice new sign up and it is just plain gone.

I'm sorry to hear about your poppies, Mulch. That sounds like one nasty storm.

Wow, Mulch, your winds were way bigger than ours! We got a nice soaker out of it, and plenty of thunder, too.
Speaking of winds in the Madison Valley, I had a BLM job maintaining the campgrounds & trails there, and one day when I was painting picnic tables, the wind picked up the paint tray and threw it at me, painting my blue jacket beige.

Lovely poppies, Mine are pretty much finished.

We had a severe windstorm July 10, winds up to 70 mph. Blew down the large side leader of my Raywood Ash, trunk of that part was about 14 inches in diameter, and more that 50 feet tall. Luckily fell east on path, and not house, but now not much shade for the east end of my deck. Also lost a large purple leaved Thundercloud Plum, 13 years olad and 30 X 30 feet, fell on top of my purple coned Thuga occidentalis aurea and broke it off. The tree couldn't be saved. Took my fellow (who works for me) about a week to cut them up with my small electric chain saw. Then all the smaller pieces chipped, and now spread in my garden. No rain with that wind.

Yesterday afternoon another thunder and lightning storm, set a few more fires, but we did get a little rain with that one. Hope for more rain but not in the forecast.

Donna

Wow, Donna, that's tough weather for your part of the world. Sorry for the loss of those lovely trees. Hopefully you will plant some new ones.
Our summer has been cool and rain has been spotty. In Santa Fe, 35 miles from here, roybird has had lots of rain and some flooding on her property. We have had a few mild showers, but really not very much rain.
Tuesday I was in Albuquerque having dinner with friends. No rain in site. I telephoned the hotel where we were staying and they asked me if I had been delayed by the rain! It turns out that it was hailing and pouring and the power was out in that part of town, not that far away.
Very spotty rain.

It has been very localized. I heard on the news that they've had rain in Albuquerque every day for the last 2 weeks and all kinds of flooding! I heard that down south in Hatch, the chile crop is ruined. We're supposed to have more rain this weekend. Now, I keep getting mosquito bites! They got me in the parking lot of the community college while I was trying to photograph a sunset. Standing water in a parking lot! That's unusual around here. Ummm. No poppies, sorry!

I have more to come and a special surprise one for mulch to cheer her up.

Dahlianut,
Oooh, I can hardly wait...

Thanks for your kind thoughts everyone. It is just a completely weird year, but I do still have poppies blooming, even if some are horizontal, and the deer seem to have decided, at least for the moment, not to eat my hollyhocks. They are starting to bloom.