Galanthus in January 2014

[RichardW]

A few tried to open today but missed a brief sunny window, have got Ivy Cottage Green Tips in the greenhouse which i've been nagging to open for weeks and finally did today, is very nice.

second is a plicatus I planted last year but forgot to put in the book so no idea what it is  Sophie North? have another but that's barely showing...

[mark smyth]

Richard your plicatus could be Three Ships

One of my Fly Fishing is hanging free but not ready to open. The pedicel is very short for now

[RichardW]

That'll be it, thank you 

[Ru]

Crimea. January 2014.
Very much early.

[Ru]

Some more.
It is very difficult to look for.
Each flower is opened by hands
0051 - All flowers cream.

[Hagen Engelmann]

 "ivy cottage green tips" looks like a very proud plant, Richard.
Fine contrast to the very globular THREE SHIPS.

Ru,
Fife green thumbs to every hand (idiom of german galanthophiles). Good luck!

[Leena]

Sooner or later all snowdrops will get caught-out and end up in leaf and flower buried under snow.  They don't seem to mind this much; what they dislike is extreme cold and no snow.  Leena, if you can rely on the snow coming then perhaps you do not need to confine yourself to late-flowering snowdrops?     

Before this "climate change" we used to have many winters with cold and very little snow in south of Finland, but in the past winters there has been more rain and when it is cold it comes down as snow and so we've had really lots of snow also here. This year it has been mild so far and rain has been just rain but it is getting colder now. A little snow is good but when there is a meter of it, it takes ages to melt. I hope this winter we don't get so much snow, but you never know. Of course the snow would be better for most of the plants.
I don't have yet experience with the early snowdrops, but I have noticed that G.nivalis usually flowers in the right time here (when the snow melts in March/April), but clumps, which grow in places where much snow has fallen from the roof of the house and thus takes longer to melt, flower inside the snow and seem to be not so vigorous as in places with less snow. These clumps may even get smaller and stop flowering all together, and now I have moved all my older snowdrops away from those place to places where I know the snow will melt early (or at least not fall from the roof). This is why I thought the same could happen to early varieties, but I don't have enough experience yet! I have common snowdrops  like Atkinsii, which are not late, planted last summer, so I'll know in a few years how they do when there is lot of snow.

[Brian Ellis]

Oh Ru!  'Emerald Bells' and now an all cream snowdrop, you are treating us with these.  How long does the cream flower stay cream?

[Ru]

Hagen, Thank you. But your cream snowdrop above any competition!

Brian, I was very lucky to find the small isolated population with big percent of a gene "green strips".
I opened hands one flower from clamp. I chose clamps, at which strips on petals the most green. It seemed to me that the next flower more yellow, than the others.
Whether to check so it, I opened the second flower too. Now I have 5 bulbs for check next year . But from this clamp I have no flowers.
There is one more clamp for check, but there this sign on the verge of perception . It is more  desire, than reality.

[David Nicholson]

I don't grow many Snowdrops but here's my first of the season, Galanthus elwesii. Way back in 2006/7 Arthur Nicholls kindly sent me some two batches of bulbs, one marked as early flowering and the second as mid-season. In 2008 I pictured the early flowering batch fully open in November but since then they've got later and for the last few seasons it's been January.

[Carolyn Walker]

Leena,  In the mid-Atlantic US, G. nivalis and all its cultivars bloom later (as you said).   I really like 'Viridapice' ('old' but still beautiful) and 'Blewbury Tart', both very vigorous.  G. woronowii also blooms later but I don't have any of its cultivars, 'Elizabeth Harrison' anyone?  'Straffan' and 'Warham' also both bloom at the end of the main season here.  As Brian said though bloom time is weather dependent.

We have had the worst possible weather here.  Snowed 8" on Saturday(that's fine because it protects the snowdrops) and went down to 3 degrees F/-16 C, then we had an ice storm on Sunday it poured rain that night, all the snow melted and it went up to 58 F/14C yesterday.  Last night with all the plants in my garden exposed and warmed, it went down to 3F/-16C again---a 55 degree spread in one day.  I packed all the snowdrops in bloom with pine needles but don't have high hopes for the flowers.  All the buds on my winter-blooming camellias are definitely frozen.  It's the life of a gardener!

[snowdropcollector]

Great finds again Ruslan. I am also very curious about the cream colours, like you and Brian.

Carolyn, sorry to hear about the bad weather you have at the moment. Cross my fingers for you that it will be over soon
and that the snowdrops will be still ok.

[mark smyth]

Very happyto see today my Green Mans/Men have doubled in a year. Each bulb now had two flower noses

[MR GRUMPY]

Some more.
It is very difficult to look for.
Each flower is opened by hands
0051 - All flowers cream.

Ru,Lovely finds

Trimmer opened it's petals today.

[johnw]

I packed all the snowdrops in bloom with pine needles but don't have high hopes for the flowers. It's the life of a gardener!

Carolyn   - The snowdrop buds will be totally unfazed by 3F., not to worry one little bit.

john