Another rather dull picture, this time of Meconopsis punicea plants in a rather wet garden today. This species  nearly always flowers as a biennial and thus dies after flowering in the second year. The bigger you can get the plants in their first year, the better they will be flowering the next. They do not go completely dormant and new smaller rosettes of leaves will soon develop and at least here in the east of Scotland I find they need no winter cover. I lost many plants this spring and only have 8 plants to flower next year. I do however have a really large set of sowings made as soon as this years seed ripened and these seed trays are all being kept cool, dark and damp until late November when they are uncovered and they will often germinate, even in the cold, by mid January. I am really hoping all goes well since this is quite a rare plant and very desirable.