KentGardener's Galanthus Blog 2013

[Anthonyh]

I've been unable to post for a few days... so this post 'out of order'... but it was nice to meet several of you at the RHS show... and I feel like a 'proper' forumist now I've been in a photo on here.

Chas... if you see this... I'm afraid the snowdrop you asked me to look out for wasn't available on Sunday... I could only a find a small clump of them. I was on the receiving end of a rather interesting expression when I asked about its availability!

I'm also a big fan of Penny Dawson's/Hugh Nunn's plants, and I have quite a few Harvington hellebores... but I'm especially fond of their Erythroniums which seem excellent garden plants here. After a quick search, I can only find a picture of one of them, it's Harvington Wild Salmon... it multiplies quickly as well as being beautiful. And, there's a bit of a local connection, as Harvington is just down the road from us.

edit by maggi- I've turned the H. wild salmon round. 

[KentGardener]

I'm halfway through what is possibly the last weekend of my snowdrop travels for this year.       But am finishing the season with a fun packed weekend.

Yesterday I had been invited to visit one of the UK's Galanthus National Collections.  I was meant to visit last year when Hagen and Uli were staying with me but the heavy snowfall of 2012 scuppered our best made plans.  An arrival time of 14.00 was suggested so I decided to spend the morning once again with Alan B in Cambridgeshire.  I met Alan a little after 10am and we started the day with a look round a church yard that Alan had explored in the previous month.  Here is a mixed population of plicatus, nivlais and double nivalis.  We didn't spot anything exceptional but there was quite a bit of variety in the size of the inner markings.  We also found an area where some plicatus were trying to be yellow, but not quite managing it.  Unfortunately it was quite chilly so the flowers all kept themselves tightly closed.

1 - Church yard.

2 - Large green mark showing between the closed petals.

3 - Thinking about being yellow.

4 - Sadly we couldn't go inside the church as it was locked.  As I have a diploma in the art and design of decorative glass I am always interest in looking at Stained glass windows.  This one looked rather nice from the outside - I bet it would look ever nicer from inside.

[KentGardener]

After leaving the church yard we drove to some of Alan's secret (privately owned) woodlands.  This was my second visit to these areas this year and I wasn't sure if we would discover anything we hadn't seen last month.  As during previous strolls I was pleasantly surprised at what we managed to spot in a 2 hour period.  It was also great to see the large drifts of drops alternating with large drifts of winter aconites. Once again a shame it was not warm enough to show either flower off in all their shining glory - but they were still a beautiful sight even tightly closed.

1 - Drift of mainly double nivalis.

2 - Snowdrop ditch.

3 - Aconites.

4 - The search is on.

5 - Alan finds a Yellow nivalis.

[KentGardener]

A few of the weird ones we encountered.

1 - A small group of 'almost' 4 outers with 4 inners.

1 - Starting to be a reverse poc.

2 - Another showing the same trait in a very different way!

[KentGardener]

And finally some green outers that were quite appealing in the different woodlands.

1 - Two green dots.

2 - Green stripes.

Our favourite 2 of the day.

3 & 4 - Green on the outers with green showing inside too.

5 - My parting view as we left this woodland before our drive to the national collection.

[Lina Hesseling]

Once more, very nice pictures, John!
What a lovely place to stroll.

Enjoy your last weekend! We will join you when we look at your pictures.

Lina.

[MR GRUMPY]

Thank's John for a little glimpse into your/Alan's secret world.I thought you had to die,To find a place like that.
Oh i,It can't of been that cold,Because Alan's not got his hat on.....

[Maggi Young]

Oh i,It can't of been that cold,Because Alan's not got his hat on.....

         Hard to pull the wool over the eyes of a forumist....... well spotted!

[KentGardener]

We arrived at Margaret and David MacLennan's house about one hour after leaving some of Alan's secret areas.  We were worried for a minute or two as we could get no answer to our knocks at the front door or our calling over the fence.  Alan then found that a side gate was unlocked and we spotted our hosts for the afternoon were out of earshot in a distant part of their garden.  I do not know how big the garden is in square metres - but it is big!

I had no idea who would be arriving to share an afternoon with snowdrops; but we were the first to get there.  After spending a cold morning in woodlands it was lovely to hear Margaret utter the words "would you like some hot soup".  How could there be more than one answer to that question?     A few seconds later I found myself tucking into a warming bowl of soup and two chunks of filling bread.  Margaret noticed I was already half way through my soup and gave me a top up.  Perfect.     My soup was followed by cups of tea and a wide selection of cakes. 

15 minutes later I looked over my shoulder to see that Brian Ellis arrive with his chauffeur.   And then in quick succession the rest of companions for the afternoon arrived. 

As we set off on our garden tour, and as a lover of Cyclamen, it was great to see the first bed heaving at the seams with Cyclamen coum.  They look soooooooo good en masse.  I really should have taken more pictures as there were large drifts of Cyclamen were all over this area - but I got distracted from taking pictures by everything I was seeing.

[Brian Ellis]

Just to  point out that I arrived with David in the car, we weren't chauffeur driven!

[Hagen Engelmann]

John two weeks ago Margaret arranged for Uli and me the only minutes of sun, we could enjoy in UK.
Byndes Cottage is a hospitable place to the Germans too.

[Hagen Engelmann]

Brian, all car drivers are chauffeurs in the eyes of John .
The only important thing: you  had an good time allt ogether.
I wish I was there too.

[KentGardener]

After admiring the Cyclamen and snowdrop beds our party wandered out onto a lawned part of the garden with various snowdrop areas.  The first we encountered was explained as a previous Orchid bed - the current netting is to keep the pheasants from destroying the Galanthus flowers.  I know I am always moaning about my tiny garden - but after this seasons discussions with fellow gardeners I guess, in a way, that I might be lucky as I has never had a pheasant picking flowers, a rabbit digging up, a squirrel emptying pots,  or deer trampling things.   

1 - Old Orchid bed.

2 - Slightly raised beds with path through middle.

3 - One of the two brick built raised beds.

4 - A certain Mr King; photographer extraordinaire.

EDIT:  5 - just spotted another pic that I like of the old Orchid bed.

[David King]

15 minutes later I looked over my shoulder to see that Brian Ellis arrive with his chauffeur.

Chauffeur?  It's amazing how you can rapidly go off people! 

[KentGardener]

Chauffeur?  It's amazing how you can rapidly go off people!

Sorry David.   

When Ian was alive and driving me all over the place for plants (sometimes doing 800 miles in a snowdrop weekend) he joked that he was my chauffeur.   

About 10 years ago when we both went to meet the National collection holder of Asplenium scolopendrium for the first time I emailed ahead to say that "I would be arriving with the chauffeur at 13.00".

There was laughter all round when we turned up at their door in our combat clothing; as they had been rather concerned whether the correct protocol was to take a tray of food out to the driver in his car or whether to ignore him.  LOL