encouraging snowdrops to seed

[Diane Whitehead]

Last year I promised some seeds of my yellow snowdrops to an overseas friend.  The flowers remained in bloom for six weeks, and then I expected to see seeds forming.  None!

This year I decided to try pollinating the flowers, but there isn't any pollen yet.  At what point should pollen be loose enough for me to use?

Might I be more successful if I dug some plants up and put them a pot in the house?

[Tomte]

Last year I promised some seeds of my yellow snowdrops to an overseas friend.  The flowers remained in bloom for six weeks, and then I expected to see seeds forming.  None!

This year I decided to try pollinating the flowers, but there isn't any pollen yet.  At what point  pollen be loose enough for me to use?

Might I be more successful if I dug some plants up and put them a pot in the house?

Hi Diane,
In my experience pollen is dehisced pretty discretely, which is to say that once conditions are good (warm, sunny day), the pollen from one or all anthers is released. Once that happened, it may be there for a few days, or it may be gone quickly. With me the early bees are so greedy  they collect all the pollen quickly (it gets better once there are generally more flowers around) that there‘s often only a short window of opportunity. Long story short, if you want to hand-pollinate, you should be quick about it once there is a warm day.
I wouldn’t advise to dig them up though..
Good luck with your endeavour.

[Tim Harberd]

Hi Dianne,
       You could try putting a large jar, upside down over some flowers. That will improve their micro climate and stop any insects (or the wind) taking the pollen. I also agitate 'reluctant' flowers  with an electronic toothbrush and collect the pollen on a black plastic spoon held underneath. Pollen shows up really nicely on black and I suspect the plastic has a slight static charge which holds pollen well.

Tim DH