Galanthus - January 2015

[SJW]

Steve, you are on the slippery slope  

Thanks, Brian. I know, it's very worrying! . I've even sowed some seed of Galanthus reginae-olgae which I'm waiting to come up and bought some young bulbs of Magnet and Straffan. Eek! What started it was a pot of Sam Arnott which I felt compelled to buy.

[Maggi Young]

Steve, rest easy - it is perfectly possible to admire snaadreeps and even garner a few to your garden, without succumbing to the potentially lethal galanthomania. 
 I am confident about this , because I have remained unsullied over many years, while a large number of my dear friends are hopelessly smitten  with these plants and the accompanying syndrome.
Naturally, I have taken an interest, partly to know what the Chums are on about  and partly because of  my forum reading "duty" - but, even though I love to see snowdrops in the garden, can admire a fine potful and might even acquire the odd one or six   - I am resolutely not a galanthophile, cannot tell what any of them are, and still maintain they are all the same.

[SJW]

Steve, rest easy - it is perfectly possible to admire snaadreeps and even garner a few to your garden, without succumbing to the potentially lethal galanthomania. 
 I am confident about this , because I have remained unsullied over many years, while a large number of my dear friends are hopelessly smitten  with these plants and the accompanying syndrome.
Naturally, I have taken an interest, partly to know what the Chums are on about  and partly because of  my forum reading "duty" - but, even though I love to see snowdrops in the garden, can admire a fine potful and might even acquire the odd one or six   - I am resolutely not a galanthophile, cannot tell what any of them are, and still maintain they are all the same.

Thanks for the reassurance, Maggi! Like you I don't get too excited about the small differences between many of the varieties although there was a pot of Sophie North (?) I saw at one of the SRGC/AGS shows that I thought was absolutely stunning. Different strokes for different folks. I wouldn't mind building up a small collection of the different species though...

[Matt T]

Thanks for the reassurance, Maggi! Like you I don't get too excited about the small differences between many of the varieties although there was a pot of Sophie North (?) I saw at one of the SRGC/AGS shows that I thought was absolutely stunning. Different strokes for different folks. I wouldn't mind building up a small collection of the different species though...

I think this is how it starts, Steve. I thought I'd collect some of the species plants, including a good number of G.reginae-olgae forms, all well and good. Then I saw 'Sophie North' at the Early Bulb Display last year and I too was smitten, so she's on my wishlist. A Scottish nursery had a couple of classic old varieties, so home they came. Wisley had a selection of distinctive varieties at reasonable prices, ditto. My criteria are that it has to be a 'good doer' in the garden, reasonably priced and that I'd be able to recognise it from ten paces. That way I hope I can enjoy the 'drops as garden plants without developing a full-blown case of infection. Good luck with your own prognosis 

[Matt T]

Steve, I've reminded myself there was an interesting discussion thread just over a year ago about "Galanthus that are truly easy to recognise". You can find the cultivars listed and pictured from this post onwards: http://www.srgc.net/forum/index.php?topic=11041.msg287686#msg287686
I think it ran to about 70 plants. As someone newly interested in snowdrops I've found this to be a useful list in navigating my way through the many, many cultivars out there. There's also lots of interesting discussion there that's worth reading.

[Tim Ingram]

We only visited the Myddelton sale for the first time last year and it was quite a revelation after reading about the background to many of the snowdrops in the Snowdrop Monograph and seeing pictures of them here. If you take a reasoned attitude it's hard to see any difference between the multiplicity of snowdrops and say of roses or daffodils or dahlias or clematis, and there seem to be great horticulturists associated with all of these, and certainly with snowdrops. Is it because they relate more directly to people that gardeners tend to resist being drawn in? They lack the sort of scientific objectivity of studying and growing natural species? I can certainly see this both ways but in both cases there is a value put on plants which doesn't seem terribly different - we grow them and find them interesting, and oftentimes beautiful. For the specialist nurseryman the arguement turns out simpler still

[Matt T]

Very true, Tim. Most people would be hard pressed to notice significant differences between some of the Narcissus I obsessively collect, the hoop petticoats particularly. The stories behind them - their habitats, distribution, the people who collected them etc - are as much a part of my enjoyment as the plants themselves. Snowdrops are no different in that respect. It's these stories that add such an engaging level of interest to the gardens of plantspeople.

[Brian Ellis]

Is it because they relate more directly to people that gardeners tend to resist being drawn in? They lack the sort of scientific objectivity of studying and growing natural species?

I think the first often leads to the second Tim; as David Way illustrated with the story of G.'Gravesend Giant' to us yesterday it is fascinating to know who found them, where and what the story is behind them.  You then get sucked in and before you know it you are just as interested, if not more so with the difficulty of replicating the perfect conditions for the species galanthus.

[Leena]

No snowdrops here this year yet, only snow, so I have looked at pictures of my snowdrops from last spring.
Here is a nice one I think. These are self sown G.elwesii seedlings, and I like especially the one on the right with two flowers. The second picture is from the same snowdrops a month later and I like how the leaves of that snowdrop have stayed short.
The third picture is also a seedling, very short one.

[johnstephen29]

Hi steve I have some nice plump seed pods on a clump of galanthus Reginae Olgae which flowers in the autumn, you can have some later in the year when they ripen.

[krisderaeymaeker]

I have no name for this .....but it is flowering in the rockgarden for the moment.

[Maggi Young]

Time after time here we read that the marks on a 'drop are less than stable -  and if the "difference" of that 'drop is defined by such fugitive marks and  this happens so often, then I think this itself breeds resistance  in some of us to get drawn into something so clearly amorphous. While the drops themselves may be lovely, why would one get obsessive about something that has little or no stability, and which, in too many cases, proves to have no stamina or vigour in  the garden?

[krisderaeymaeker]

Time after time here we read that the marks on a 'drop are less than stable -  and if the "difference" of that 'drop is defined by such fugitive marks and  this happens so often, then I think this itself breeds resistance  in some of us to get drawn into something so clearly amorphous. While the drops themselves may be lovely, why would one get obsessive about something that has little or no stability, and which, in too many cases, proves to have no stamina or vigour in  the garden?

Agree on that Maggi .....

[Tim Ingram]

I suppose the closest analogy is probably the fern-fever of the Victorian age but unusual ferns were discovered and dug up from the wild which is less than PC these days. With snowdrops you can do the same thing in your own garden! It will be interesting to watch which snowdrops really persist and join the ranks of 'S. Arnott' and 'Magnet' over time, but there are old varieties like 'John Gray' which are real classic snowdrops and which I for one haven't been able to establish in the garden, but keep on trying (why? - it's a sort of stubborness I suppose, a bit like what happens to people who collect crocus ). When you get a clump like this of 'S. Arnott' in Elizabeth Cairn's garden, Knowle Hill Farm, it does set the heart racing and it's hard to stop yourself buying a few more varieties each year even if they might be a little fugitive at times.

What was interesting at Myddelton is how you slowly tune in to the variation in snowdrops on the rock garden (at first this is just a sea of white, as you see them naturalised in woodlands). The eye has an amazing ability to differentiate the smallest and subtlest of differences which others are wonderfully able to point out to you when you do consider all snowdrops just white things that flower in winter! I agree that long term vigour in the garden is the real thing to look for, and I tend to allow fertile snowdrops to set seed and spread for this very reason. But 'S. Arnott' for example is sterile and still a wonderful 'doer'. (I've had a quick look in the Plantfinder and only around seven snowdrops have an AGM and four of these are simply the species elwesii, nivalis, plicatus and woronowii - that doesn't give an impression of what fun you can get from these plants )

[Maggi Young]

........ but there are old varieties like 'John Gray' which are real classic snowdrops and which I for one haven't been able to establish in the garden, but keep on trying (why? - it's a sort of stubborness I suppose, a bit like what happens to people who collect crocus )..

I'll gloss over the remark about the exalted ranks of the Croconut ........

It is odd how we all vary in how often we'll try with a plant before we give up and admit it's not going to grow for us. We each have a different pain threshold on the matter, I'm sure!
'Sophie North' has been mentioned as a lovely plant  - and it is - but  it has never established here, while Angie grew it well just a couple of miles away as the crow flies. Mind you, these differences in success can often be seen in o ne garden nver mind one street or county!
What I do think about 'Sophie North' is that she is one of a fairly few 'drops which seems to settle well and grow beautifully in a pot.  There are some stunning potfuls shown around the UK- we've seen plenty in the forum- just bursting with health and so pretty.