I happened to catch a photo of Longwood Gardens on FaceBook the other day, and it inspired notions of making a pilgrimage to Pennsylvania next winter or spring to find my long-sought-after dream plant, the Blue Himalayan Poppy (Meconopsis).
The quest to see a specimen of Meconopsis has been quietly burning for years, inspired by a book on finding the elusive Shangri-la in Tibet. After realizing that flying to the Himalayan mountains just to see a blue poppy was perhaps too crazy and extreme even for me, I did a little research and found that there were several stands of blue poppies growing in Canada. That was still about ten hours away, and the blooming period ranged from anytime in July to August- and if I happened to miss it, it wasn’t another trip we could easily make the following weekend.
When I looked on the website for Longwood Gardens, however, I saw that they had a featured list of plants in bloom according to date – and one of them was the Himalayan blue poppy. You cannot imagine my excitement when I realized this dream was within a few hours’ grasp.
Would I travel the world just to find a flower? I would do more than that, and love every moment of it. The mind can travel without setting foot in a car or a plane, and seeking the Himalayan blue poppy had taken me around the world ~ now it’s time for the eye to travel, to seek beauty in the land of Penn’s woods… Sometimes one need not look any further than one’s own backyard. (Or at least a neighboring state.)
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