Snowdrop Region Elbe Elster Germany

[Harald-Alex.]

I start today a stream of fotos from the snowdrop region Torgau/Elbe - Herzberg/Elster -Uebigau in germany. I want to show the highlights of spring flower places, as snowdrops, crocus, scillas and chionodoxa grow here since many years.

Foto 1: - in the Torgau townpark "Glacies" grows thousands of snowdrops G. nivalis for many years
Foto 2: - right and left of the way to the railwaystation Torgau every februar snowdrops open her flowers
Foto 3: - around the church of Wildschütz in mart thousands of wild crocus colours the churchyard violett
Foto 4: - the park around the Castle of Uebigau is developed as Snowdrop-park
Foto 5: - the park of Schurigshof - Döbrichau every year in mart is blue by scilla flowers

[Jacek]

Beautiful places, worth seeing. I try to achieve similar result in my garden and in the closest neighbourhood - along the streets etc - by actively dispersing seeds. Much smaller scale, of course.

[Mariette]

Beautiful sceneries, Harald - Alex; I wish I could enjoy them not only via pics!

[Harald-Alex.]

Beautiful places, worth seeing. I try to achieve similar result in my garden and in the closest neighbourhood - along the streets etc - by actively dispersing seeds. Much smaller scale, of course.

Hallo Jacek,
thank You for Your interesting comment. We are in Eastgermany not so far away from Your home. Torgau is north of Leipzig and south of Berlin by the river Elbe. We try to develop our area to a "Snowdrop-region" and have for this a good natural basis. In 2022 in Torgau will be celebrated the next "Saxonia Garden Show" and we plan, bevore the official opening in April, a special "Snowdrop-Weekend" in february with a show of different Snowdrop varieties and Celebrating a "Name-Giving" of an new snowdropvarieties! More fotos of my snowdrops You can find in "flickr" under the personal words "Harald Alex", there You can see my fotostream.
With great interest I look for Your fotos in this forum!

[Harald-Alex.]

Beautiful sceneries, Harald - Alex; I wish I could enjoy them not only via pics!

Thank You, Mariette for Your nice comment. You are invited to visit our region and my new snowdrop-garden. I see, You live near the Rhein and there You will be in Nettetal next week. We are this time in Scottland to visit snowdrop - parks as Castle Cambo Gardens and others, but in Nettetal in Michael Camphausen as snowdrop-sellers, we knew us good!

[Alan_b]

I really like the effect achieved in the second photograph where the snowdrops are randomly distributed rather than in clumps and gaps.  Is propagation of the snowdrops mostly achieved though seed or is it done manually?  I ask because in the UK we have some large populations of Galanthus nivalis which are almost sterile and set seed very rarely - and yet still have been spread over a wide area.

[Harald-Alex.]

I really like the effect achieved in the second photograph where the snowdrops are randomly distributed rather than in clumps and gaps.  Is propagation of the snowdrops mostly achieved though seed or is it done manually?  I ask because in the UK we have some large populations of Galanthus nivalis which are almost sterile and set seed very rarely - and yet still have been spread over a wide area.

Hallo Alan, thank You for Your interest comment. The snowdrops in the Glacies Torgau flowers many years and I think, they mostly spread by seedlings. I have found many of them and the older clumbs differ a little bit in colour of the leaves and time of flowering. This shows the natural genetic variability of Galanthus nivalis, come from seedlings (Foto 1). In the other side we have old places with infertile G nivalis flore pleno. Here the clumbs are bigger and need the help of the people to spread (Foto2)

Foto 1: - Galanthus nivalis in the Glacies Torgau from seeds with natural genetic variability
Foto 2: - G. nivalis flore pleno in the Park Schurigshof with great clumbs of infertile flowers

[Harald-Alex.]

I really like the effect achieved in the second photograph where the snowdrops are randomly distributed rather than in clumps and gaps.  Is propagation of the snowdrops mostly achieved though seed or is it done manually?  I ask because in the UK we have some large populations of Galanthus nivalis which are almost sterile and set seed very rarely - and yet still have been spread over a wide area.

Hallo Alan, I have two more fotos with seedlings for You
Foto 1: shows the place in my garden, where between longyears G. nivalis grows some G, elwesii, I got from gardenmarket OBI 10 years ago. With the help of the bees there are yearly many fertile semen and from there I selected interseting seedlings of elwesii types.
Foto 2: one of a big and healthy growing seedling is himself very fertile and under the flowers (left) I found many germinated snowdropseedlings

[Jacek]

I ask because in the UK we have some large populations of Galanthus nivalis which are almost sterile and set seed very rarely - and yet still have been spread over a wide area.

Alan,

Very interesting to me. I'm just a hobby gardener and my level of knowledge is very low. I have had only flore pleno for years. Now I "imported" plain nivalis from gardens in the neighbourhood. One of the reasons is the need for seeds and seedlings. It's too early to judge if I have seedlings - there were seed pods for sure. Whether there were viable seeds inside - I don't know. But the risk of sterility is high - the plants present in the local kindergarten form huge clumps without separated single plants - they must be sterile. I will observe this year.

Of course, I could bring single plants from the wild - they are no longer strictly protected in Poland as the natural populations are growing. But they do not grow wild in my neighbourhood.

In case of G. elwesii I clearly have seedlings.

[Jacek]

Hallo Jacek,
thank You for Your interesting comment. We are in Eastgermany not so far away from Your home. Torgau is north of Leipzig and south of Berlin by the river Elbe. We try to develop our area to a "Snowdrop-region" and have for this a good natural basis. In 2022 in Torgau will be celebrated the next "Saxonia Garden Show" and we plan, bevore the official opening in April, a special "Snowdrop-Weekend" in february with a show of different Snowdrop varieties and Celebrating a "Name-Giving" of an new snowdropvarieties! More fotos of my snowdrops You can find in "flickr" under the personal words "Harald Alex", there You can see my fotostream.
With great interest I look for Your fotos in this forum!

Harald-Alex,

You are right, not so far - "only" 650 KM. One day I will come.

As to my photos - unfortunately, I do not have much to show. May be some time...

[Harald-Alex.]

Last year we started in Torgau a landart projekt for the 500 Year of Reformation with 16000 Galanthus and Chionodoxa and planted the portraits of Martin Luther and Katharina von Bora in the lawn of the Rosengarten near the Castle Hartenfels Torgau ( Foto 1).
We opened a new "Lutherweg Elbe-Elster" and near the "Heilandskirche Beilrode" we planted the family-logo of Martin Luther. (Foto 2).
In the next month the park of Schurigshof will coloured ful BLUE with thousands of Scilla sibirica flowers (Foto 3)

[Hannelore]

When I follow the discussion about seedlings I really wonder how fertilisation in snowdrops takes place. The time when they flower there are no bees flying, so who is responsible for the pollination?

Hannelore

[ashley]

My bees really like snowdrops Hannelore, presumably because there aren't many other good sources of pollen so early in the year.

[Hannelore]

My bees really like snowdrops Hannelore, presumably because there aren't many other good sources of pollen so early in the year.

It's much warmer in your country than here. Bees don't fly before March or April (12-15°C). We have years in which we don't have peaches because it was too cold for bees when the trees flowered. When the first bees appear the snowdrops are gone for weeks.

Hannelore

[Mariette]

In our area (Niederrhein), bees and bumblebees are well on their way when the majority of snowdrops flowers, at least G. nivalis. Most snowdrops open their flowers when temperatures reach 10 °C, and that´s when the insects are out, too.

When the pollen is shed, the wind may carry it at least 10 cm or so. If different clones are growing so close together, they´re likely to be pollinated that way, too.