Blue Poppy Seed

Has anyone had sucsess with growing Meconopsis Betoncifolia (blue poppy) from seed I have just harvested some from my garden and it would be great if I could get some more form my seed. Any tips gratfully recived as I belive they are rather difficult.

 

I have this page bookmarked.......................

http://www.meconopsis.org/pages/cultivate3.html#raisingseed

The whole site is rather interesting.
There are different groups if you have a cultivar - fertile and (you guessed it) infertile.

 

Ive tried for 2 yr with no success from seed but i planted them out in trays under tree/shade area hoping ..maybe i should added more grit n protected form slugs more
I have today bought 2 seedlings from a open garden walk in our area and i hope i can keep them alive till spring

 

Thanks for both your replies . The link is very useful Mine should be (if labled correct at the garden center ) betoncifolia, I bought 2 plants both differnt the other one cant remember the speici/cultivar Died . Betoncifolia survived and flowered well hopfully with viable seed . Will try to keep posts as progess is or not made

 

I've not tried yet but i have seeds this year from mine and will plant soon. I'll let you know how i get on. The Don said on last weeks GW that the Sheldonii, which i think mine are, don't grow true from seed but it will be a Poppy in the least.

 

I grew 100s from seed this year much to my surprise! Certainly many varieties of Meconopsis only produce sterile seed and therefore you can only increase them by division. From what I read one of the easiest to grow from seed is Lingholm and that's the variety I had success with. I bought my original Meconopsis from Ian Christie (expert) so was pretty confident I'd get varieties which were labelled correctly. I collected the seed about this time last year when the pods were black and beginning to split. Stuck the seed in a takeaway plastic container and left it in the fridge until about April. I sowed the seed in my own compost (nothing fancy) and then sieved a little compost on half the seed and grit on the other half to see which was better. I put the tray in an unheated glasshouse.Result literally hundreds of seedlings from the half with sieved compost and about 2 which were covered with grit! Maybe I over watered, don't really know. Anyway 1 tip if you get germination is to be careful when potting the seedlings on as I found if I transplanted even a fraction deeper than they had been they'd rot off.
Can't wait till next year and hopefully some lovely blue Poppies come May time.Hope the variety you have seed from is fertile and good luck.