Galanthus March - April2007

[mark smyth]

Martin are you planning to attend any snowdrop events next year?

Maggi I'll take the first spare bulb please. I'm not biased towards colour breaks!

[Maggi Young]

will follow in an encrypted email.Please read and then eat it

Couldn't you just send it in a cake?

I'm not biased towards colour breaks!

That'll get you drummed out of the Brownies White feverists!

[Martin Baxendale]

I'm hoping to, Mark - when I know where and when they are. I'm fed up with always missing them 'cos of work commitments. Although, having just written a long article for the next RHS Daffodils, Snowdrops and Tulips Yearbook about my snowdrop breeding activities, I'll no doubt be letting myself in for a lot of first-hand criticism and put-downs for the many howlers, inaccuracies and idiocies that will inevitably populate the article (although I had a lot of excellent editing advice from Peter Brandham at Kew, so hopefully he's weeded out my worst clangers).

[Martin Baxendale]

Will do, Maggi. How about a nice raspberry pavlova? Seriously though, I'll have to dial down the talk about great whiteness. This is starting to sound like some kind of gun-totting white supremacist thread!

[Maggi Young]

I would say "God Forbid" but that would get us into more trouble..... hard life, ain't it?

[Maggi Young]

Is the message in here?
 

[Martin Baxendale]

Yes, Maggi. But it self-destructs in 30 seconds so eat it quick!

[Maggi Young]

... and you thought I wasn't built for speed!

[Maggi Young]

Here's a pic of my Dad, Bob,  and I with the only supreme white beings worshipped in our house.... the West Highland White Terrier goddesses,  Lily and our occasional Lodger, Molly 


It's my Dad's birthday tomorrow, he'll be 94.... having terrible trouble getting insurance cover for cake candles!

[annew]

Happy Birthday, Maggi's Dad!

[Lesley Cox]

Certainly a happy birthday, with cake

Martin, I'm sorry I didn't get a pic of `Winterwood.' I had left my camera in the market's site office and for 2 weeks forgot to grab it and bring it home when I was there each weekend, so I missed on the best flowering of several things. Hopefully I'll do better next year.

Mark you dont need to worry about confusion in this case as `Winterwood' being a SH selection won't be in the NH yet and we can make sure it never gets there if it would bother you

Paul, over all, the flower was twice as long as `Atkinsii' when closed and twice as wide with its "wings" spread.

[Paul T]

Lesley,

I really am wondering whether what I have as 'Atkinsii' is what you have as 'Atkinsii'?  Mine has fairly large flowers, so doubling their size would be an absoutely phenomenal flower to put it mildly!!??

Martin,

You are assigning a little too much organisation to me...... I never get around to collecting Galanthus seed except on very rare occasions.  I am getting seedlings near a few varieties now and if they're too close then I lift and move them (like this year I lifted seedligns from amongst the 'Sibbertoft Manor's into a pot to grow on.  I don't want SM diluted by seedlings, plus I'll be intrigued to see what the seedlings look like in a few years when they flower.  My 'Atkinsii' is nowhere near anything else, so it's seedlings will be fairly obvious if they sprout where they fall.

[Lesley Cox]

Paul, I'm afraid I don't have a pic of my `Atkinsii.' I'll rectify that next year, but it is quite distinctive, with a long flower in the typical pear-drop shape of the kind of pearl you might see on a pendant necklace. Of course it opens wide to your typical 3-winged helicopter and has a smallish, heart-shaped green spot. It is very elegant and I find it the best doer among all my snowdrops. And it is quite large compared with most. So `Winterwood' was huge.

I'm sure there will be a portrait on Mark's website.

[mark smyth]

Galanthus 'Atkinsii'

[Lesley Cox]

The one on yout snowdropinfo site shows the "drop" shape more clearly Mark.