galanthus wanted

[Diane Whitehead]

Having your seeds go dry would be like sowing seedex seeds.

I looked up my germination data from seedex seeds and posted it somewhere.
Let me go find it.

OK.  It was the final message in the Seeds from the Caucasus.
==============================================

Quote from: mark smyth on December 17, 2007, 12:38:30 PM
I dont think the Galanthus seeds would be alive this late

I have had fairly good success germinating Galanthus from seed exchanges.

I've had no germination from nivalis and a few unusual ones. 

G. reginae-olgae always germinates.  I sow them as soon as they arrive,
usually in December, and they germinate the following December, or
 occasionally two or three months later than that.

I know the names have changed, and the seeds might not have been correctly
labelled.  However, these have germinated in less than a year:  caucasicus,
fosteri, and plicatus.

I've sown only one lot of G. gracilis which took 18 months to germinate. (January
to the July after the next).

[Paddy Tobin]

I have grown very little snowdrops from seed, only two in fact but, for what it's worth, here is my experience: G. caucasicus was the first different snowdrop I ever grew; before that I had only G. nivalis. This came very easily from seed, simply sown in a normal seed and potting compost, covered with grit and left outside in a shady spot afterwards until ready for planting in the garden. It continues to grow as an excellent garden plant.

In the last few years I have taken the seed from G. 'Wendy's Gold', which I grow in a raised bed where the soil is covered with bark. I have simply scraped back the bark in one spot and scattered the seed onto the soil. Germination followed the following spring on the two occasions on which I did this. No flowers from this yet.

Paddy

[Martin Baxendale]

Diane, interesting that you always get good germination with Gal. reginae-olgae seed - me too. Reginae-olgae, being generally a lower-altitude warm-climate species from around the med., obviously doesn't need so much cold to germinate as other species. Maybe it can also germinate more readily from dry seed as it's the one species that is specially adapted to a very warm, summer-dry mediterranean climate.

The other species tend to be naturally adapted to cooler, less summer-dry woodland conditions, generally at higher altitudes. For their seeds, drying out completely with hard seed coats would tend to indicate unusually dry/hot seasonal conditions which would tend to induce longer dormancy to ensure the seed does not germinate during a hostile season.

For reginae-olgae, however, seed that becomes dry and hard in summer would not be an unusual occurrence and might not induce such deep dormancy.

With snowdrop seed generally, I'm nit saying that dried seed will never germinate the next spring. But it's been well known, especially amongst those who've regularly tried to sow a lot of snowdrop seeds over recent decades, that dry seed can be very erratic - it may germinate normally, or it may wait 2 or 3 years, or never come up.

The recommendation has always been to sow snowdrop seeds as soon as ripe. And I once read that narcissus seed should ideally have a warm, moist period then a cold moist period to maximise germination percentages. Since galanthus is closely related to narcissus, I tried that for the snowdrop seeds and found that germination was much more reliable if the seed pots were never allowed to become bone dry during summer. I keep them under glass, to ensure they never get too wet or too dry, and water by hand very sparingly to ensure they're always very slightly moist - which equates to their natural woodland conditions. And usually I've had close to 100% germination.

Except last winter and this winter, which have been so mild and frost-free here that I think lack oflow temperatures must be causing erratic germination (some pots are producing nothing at all, and sometimes the same seed split between two pots will germinate in one pot and not the other).

[partisangardener]

As I mentioned.
This time I tried to germinate  Galanthus seeds (from 2013) indoor.
They just started.
Last Time outdoor storage, they where futher developed, already had bulbs by this time of the year.
I kept them this time in a bag with peat moss, in my unheated studio on the floor under a table. Temperatue  changes much less than outside. No cold period jet.
They will form now a bulb which will grow its first leaf in spring.

[Hagen Engelmann]

Partisangardener
Why do you start your experiment before the wintertime, why not after the winter?? All seedlings like to get more and more light/sun - just spring time

[partisangardener]

What I said before. Delayed germination underground. They grow a bulb now and after the winter the first leaf in spring 2014.
They don't need light now.


If I would sow them in spring2014, the first leaf would mostly be in 2015 and poor germination.
I kept the fruits in this bag for some weeks in green condition. When they lost the seeds I kept them moist.
They did three weeks ago just nothing.
Now I checked again.
Last time I kept them in a pot with some earth sunk in the ground at a shadow place. When in October I wanted to sow them, it was already a mess of bulbs and roots very difficult to tear apart.
To prove my theory I kept them in a plastic bag to show everybody how they germinate.
I thought this was common knowledge at first, but I was probably wrong?

[partisangardener]

Here I told first about my finding.
http://www.srgc.net/forum/index.php?topic=10074.msg267782#msg267782
I could not find it at first, not used to this forum.

[partisangardener]

Leucojum vernum shows the same germinationpattern with me. I had several years enough seeds to see this.
What would happen in case of autumn sowing I don't know. Never tried it.
Observed germination was always more than 90 % forming a bulb. But many died in first hard winters (6b). Natural selection for my hard climate.

[Roma]

Thought this might be of interest.
I had to dig up a clump of Galanthus elwesii last February because of botrytis.  I found some recently germinated seedlings.  The picture was taken onFebruary 22nd 2012

[ashley]

Indeed it is Roma, and not only in the context of timing.
If deep positioning of the bulb is powered to any significant degree by the leaf then sowing deeper than 2-3 cm might be counterproductive    

[Guff]

This is a bed that I grew from seed. They were sown summer 2005 after collecting. Spring 2012 was the first time they flowered and had 22 flowers. This past spring over 100+ flowers. I didn't take much care the first couple years after germination with this batch of seedlings, like feeding and such. I think one could reduce time to flowering by a couple years. Now I put down fresh worm compost and bone meal, and water with ferts.

Spring 2013 snowdrop seedlings.

[Guff]

Pictures were taken Nov 11, 2010, these seedlings were from fresh seed sown June of that year.

1-2 snowdrop seed germinating

[Alan_b]

Thought this might be of interest.
I had to dig up a clump of Galanthus elwesii last February because of botrytis...

Have you tried Trichoderma?  See http://www.srgc.net/forum/index.php?topic=6697.0

[Lesley Cox]

Since the topic here is "Galanthus Wanted" I thought I could share my experience of recent days. That lovely daff lady in York, sent me some special Galanthus seed - back at the beginning of July. I wanted them very much but eventually decided that they had joined the ranks of the missing in action and would not arrive at their new home. I was thrilled therefore to have them arrive just a couple of days ago, still looking plump and healthy, 4 months after their dispatch from the UK. They are safely sown and hopefully will be none the worse for their time goodness knows where! Some iris seed from France is apparently on the same mystery trip.

[Guff]

Thanks for pointing that out Lesley, being an old thread I doubt anyone even looked at the topic. I read last couple posts and wanted to share, to be fair  the topic did change way back in 2008.