Galanthus Events 2009

[Maggi Young]

Why Wednesday David 

Midweek treat, Jo..... quieter and fewer people to share the cakes with.....

[Brian Ellis]

fewer people to share the cakes with.....

That's what I call good planning

[David Nicholson]

Maggie's right of course Jo,but the fact is the Nicholson's are creatures of habit and since I retired Wednesday has always been the day we go out together during the week. That means I can claim the rest of the working week for gardening.

[Tony Willis]

We use Thursdays, the problem is you go to somewhere like the lakes in winter and every lay by is full of old codgers sat in their car with their sandwiches and flask. Nowhere for us to park with ours.

[Paddy Tobin]

David,

I mentioned to Mary that we must visit the Garden House on a Wednesday so that we might meet the Nicholsons. Her reply: Are they the Sissinghurst Nicholsons?

I explained that you were of the Devon branch of the family.

Paddy

[Alan_b]

Not an event as such, but has anyone been to Painswick Rococo Garden, in the village of Painswick, near Stroud, Gloucestershire. http://www.rococogarden.org.uk/latest_news.aspx ?  I went there in 2002 and remember a very large number of 'wrong' snowdrops, like the ones in my photo.

[Jo]

We use Thursdays, the problem is you go to somewhere like the lakes in winter and every lay by is full of old codgers sat in their car with their sandwiches and flask. Nowhere for us to park with ours.

I never try and move my sheep on Thursdays, too many old codgers dozing in the gateways digesting sandwiches and tea.

[David Nicholson]

David,

I mentioned to Mary that we must visit the Garden House on a Wednesday so that we might meet the Nicholsons. Her reply: Are they the Sissinghurst Nicholsons?

I explained that you were of the Devon branch of the family.

Paddy

I wish!

[David Nicholson]

We use Thursdays, the problem is you go to somewhere like the lakes in winter and every lay by is full of old codgers sat in their car with their sandwiches and flask. Nowhere for us to park with ours.

I never try and move my sheep on Thursdays, too many old codgers dozing in the gateways digesting sandwiches and tea.

Now Jo, in these hard times you must realise it's us old codgers who are propping up the nation with our heavily taxed pensions and thus allowing SuperGord to save the world

[Jo]

 

[Maggi Young]

Not an event as such, but has anyone been to Painswick Rococo Garden, in the village of Painswick, near Stroud, Gloucestershire. http://www.rococogarden.org.uk/latest_news.aspx ?  I went there in 2002 and remember a very large number of 'wrong' snowdrops, like the ones in my photo.

Looks a lovely place, Alan, but is there a nuclear power station nearby  ....all those "wrong" snowies must be caused by something!!
I found a link on the site that may prove very interesting, even to non-galanthophiles......

http://www.rococogarden.org.uk/uploads/pdffiles/cakerecipes.pdf         

[Alan_b]

Looks a lovely place, Alan, but is there a nuclear power station nearby  ....all those "wrong" snowies must be caused by something!!
I found a link on the site that may prove very interesting, even to non-galanthophiles......

http://www.rococogarden.org.uk/uploads/pdffiles/cakerecipes.pdf         

I was wondering if the garden was populated with Galnthus Atkinsii, or the "bad" form that I think we are supoosed to call "James Backhouse".  This does randomly stange things most years.  I would not have recognised this snowdrop in 2002, so I asked the question in case somebody knew or had been there more recently.  It was a lovely place and it had a tea room where I presume you could sample the recipes without having to go to the trouble of making them!  I did not notice a nuclear power station.

[Martin Baxendale]

Looks a lovely place, Alan, but is there a nuclear power station nearby  ....all those "wrong" snowies must be caused by something!!

Berkeley Nuclear Power Station, an old Magnox plant now decommissioned, about fifteen miles away.

The 'Atkinsii'-type snowdrops reportedly came originally from James Atkins, who first distributed 'Atkinsii' and whom it's named after, who lived in a cottage a few hundred yards across the park from the big house at Painswick Park. I visited with my father a long time ago and saw some original 'Atkinsii' growing in James Atkins's garden.

Over the decades, especially when the garden at Painswick Park well into disrepair and was neglected, quite a few snowdrop 'hunters' went through the drifts there and it's quite possible that they tended to take 'good' 'Atkinsii' away and tended to leave abnormal ones behind, so the current population may contain a lot of aberrant ones for that reason.

I'm not totally convinced that there were originally two completely different stocks of 'Atkinsii', one aberrant and one genetically more stable. I think it was more the case that 'Atkinsii' sometimes turns aberrant and over the years people selected out the best, or weeded out the wierd ones, so different populations arose in gardens, some pure, some aberrant, and others mixed.

[Martin Baxendale]

Sorry, I meant to finish that last post by saying that I think what I suggest there is a more likely scenario than there having been two distinct forms of 'Atkinsii', one aberrant and one non-aberrant, which in some mysterious way became mixed up together in gardens.

[Paddy Tobin]

Martin,

Your comments re G. 'Atkinsii' certainly make sense. Abberant G. 'Atkinsii' are being distributed under G. 'James Backhouse' . I also seem to recall comments in the snowdrop book that one should keep an eye on plantings of G. 'Atkinsii' and weed out the abberant ones, giving me the impression that G. 'Atkinsii' is simply inclined to regularly produce abberant flowers and wonder it these abberations deserve a cultivar name at all but should simply be regarded as part and parcel of the ways of G. 'Atkinsii'.

There are a few other snowdrops, I'm not sure if I should call them cultivars or Atkinsii look-alikes, that I am beginning to have doubts about. I am growing G. 'Lyn' and G. 'Silverwells' and wonder what is meant to be distinctive about them. (No, Maggi, this is not an opportunity for you to jump in!)

Any comments on these ones, Martin?