how to flower in pots

[Diane Whitehead]

I grow almost all of my snowdrops in the garden, but I have a few in pots,
mostly to keep track of them.

The ones in pots in the unheated greenhouse (winter temperature about
the same as outside, mostly about 5 to 10 C) did not produce any flowers
this year.

I also have some in small clay pots dug into soil outside.  Some of them
flowered.

I suppose I should fertilize my pots.  How often and when?

Oh - another question.  I brought one of the clay pots inside so the warmth
would make it easier to harvest some pollen.  I dug carefully as I assumed
the roots would have grown down through the drainage hole, but they
had not.  The 10 cm deep pot had no roots showing.  I find this very odd.
How deep do snowdrop roots grow?

[Alan_b]

I grow lots of snowdrops in pots at present.  Many don't appear to mind at all; some (like 'Rodmarton') have never flowered in a pot.  For that matter, I grow a few tough little nivalis flore pleno in very dry and rather dark conditions under a tree - these rarely flower also.  This season has been a particularly poor one for flowers, although a good year for bulb splitting and extra shoots.  Last summer was unusually wet and not very warm - which I would have expected to benefit flowering.  Last February, March and September were relatively dry, however.

My pots are outside all the time but moved to a shadier spot in summer.  I don't plunge them so use unusually large pots, around 3 litre capacity.  I feed them with tomato feed rather sporadically in March and April.  The ones potted in 2010 are generally looking pretty miserable this year so it looks as if three years would be the maximum pot life without changing the compost and re-potting every two years would be better.

Roots never emerge from my 3l pots; in general root length and width are very dependent on the individual bulb.       

[art600]

Alan

I grow a lot in pots - I like to see new snowdrops flower before putting any in the garden,  Also can separate out extras to give to friends or swap or sell.

My experience from last year's wet weather is fantastic flowering - the bulbs are generally repotted annually.

[Alan_b]

Yes, Arthur, possibly my problem is that too much nutrient got washed out of the pots where the compost was more spent.  I certainly got better results from those bulbs that I had managed to re-pot last year.