Bulb Log 2020

[Ian Y]

Thanks Keith I wish you great success with your Trillium rivale if you can get it to set seed that should help you establish it.
Sometimes we keep plants hostage in pots as an insurance against loosing it in the garden but from experience I find it is often the reverse the ones in the garden are the survivors.

[Ian Y]

Simply Erythroniums in this Bulb Log - click the link to view.


http://www.srgc.org.uk/logs/logdir/2020Apr291588155941BULB_LOG_1820.pdf

[Ian Y]

Click the link for a few Fritillaria, more Erythronium plus the chance to help me asses some of my new hybrids.


http://www.srgc.org.uk/logs/logdir/2020May061588759755BULB_LOG_1920.pdf

[Leena]

I enjoy the bulb log and videos every week, though rarely comment anything. Thank you!
My favourite of your Erythroniums is D. I liked it most even from the first group picture, it somehow stood out from the rest of them
Maybe it was the contrast with pale flowers to darker marked leaves, but also the way it grew was nice. Maybe the others were bigger clumps and that is why D looked different.

[David Nicholson]

... and B would be my choice!

[Jon Evans]

D for me.  Leena has already said everything I would want to say.  Lovely.  But then they are all very attractive.

[Ian Y]

Thank you Leena, David and Jon, I value all your comments.

It is very interesting to know your choice and the reasons behind it.

 I did intend to say in the bulb log that B was the first to open its flowers and was fading as I took these picture with D being the last to flower so it presented as a more compact plant as the stems had not elongated as they do.

All of them just starting into  flower as Craigton Cover Girl was going over so would extend the flowering season.

Thanks again for helping me.

[Brenda W.]

Hello Ian,
My choice of the Erythronium seedlings would be C followed by B, however they are all worthy of a place in the garden.
Brenda Wilson.

[Ian Y]

Thank you Brenda, part of my dilemma is there is not a poor one among them.

[Rick R.]

Overall, I like D best.  I think the subtle color blends better with the foliage.  For me at least, a strong pink and green don't go together very well.  High on my list of criteria would be floret spacing and flower symmetry with regard to petals and sepals.  As a floret ages, if the sepals strongly recurve and the petals do not, this is what I would breed out if I could.  A's inflorescence is too stringy, and C's is too compact.

[Ian Y]

Thanks for your input Rick all valuable comments that will help me decide.

[Ian Y]

Trillium are the main subject of this Bulb Log, click the link to read why I divide them in full growth - Anemone and Molly also appear........


http://www.srgc.org.uk/logs/logdir/2020May131589365089BULB_LOG_2020.pdf

[ashley]

Another great log & beautiful trilliums Ian; thank you.

For me a benefit of this lockdown has been more garden time, and a chance to plant out batches of seedlings before the new roots develop. 
My only clump deserving of the name was a poor old T. grandiflorum too long in a pot, but it separated readily into quite a few nice divisions that are in the ground at last. 
However the variability of seedlings is more interesting and, as you show so clearly, allows adaptation to local conditions with successive generations & self-seeding.

Would you advise division of hacquetia now or later?

[Carolyn]

Ashley,

Last winter I re-read some of Beth Chatto's books, and she recommended splitting hacquetia in winter, just before it starts into growth. So in January I managed to split 6 pieces off H. 'Thor' and they all seem to have survived so far.

[Carolyn]

Ian,

Another most enjoyable bulblog, thank you.

I have spent much of the lockdown trying to remove as much celandine from a large woodland bed - although I love them, sometimes things get a bit out of control and I decided that enough was enough. Your ficaria verna pale form - how do you control it? Does it set seed with the more usual bright yellow flowers? I have found a couple of very pale ones in the garden and potted them up. I have not decided what to do with them yet - I don't want to unleash yet another invasive terror into the garden! How long have you been growing the pale form?