Galanthus March 2009

[johnw]

Here is nice plump one we admired at Colesbourne - 'Pat Mason'.

johnw

[Thomas Huber]

Winter has gone in Germany and the first snowdrops appear.
Between some "standard" forms I found these:
- Double headed elwesii
- yellowish elwesii (wasn't there last year!)
- deformed nivalis
- reginae-olgae ssp vernalis with 3 bits and a green striped form (out since November!)

In the February thread there was a discussion about Galanthus alpinus and bortkewitschianus.
I didn't find any photos so here are some. Cant see any
difference so I have to check the bulbs when dormant in summer.

Next is Galanthus carbadensis.

Is Galanthus nivalis ssp imperati a valid name? Or is it forma/var imperati.
In every case the leaves don't look like the standard nivalis plants.

Finally Galanthus Wasp

[Anthony Darby]

Nice to see pics of alpinus and cabardensis Thomas. They are two species on my hit list. I love the way you have managed to flower them with their leaves still quite small. What's the secret?

[Thomas Huber]

I love the way you have managed to flower them with their leaves still quite small. What's the secret?

No secret, they have been frozen until last week. Don't know if they do it the same way after a warm winter.
Perhaps I can tell you next year.

[Brian Ellis]

Yes she is certainly attractive John

[mark smyth]

Threes heads seen in England last month

[mark smyth]

It looks virused.

[Martin Baxendale]

It looks virused.

The flower stem on the right does look a bit virused, Mark, and the leaf on the left looks like it might have virus or stagonosphora. I'm starting to think virtually all snowdrops carry viruses unless they're brand new seedlings, and even then I'm not sure. So many can look okay at the start of the season and then start to look virused as the weather warms up and virus activity picks up. My 'Sophie North' looked fine earlier, but now they look virusy.   

[Alan_b]

In the February thread there was a discussion about Galanthus alpinus and bortkewitschianus.
I didn't find any photos so here are some. Cant see any
difference so I have to check the bulbs when dormant in summer.

Proceed with caution.  I have a pot of Galanthus alpinus bortkewitschianus which I intended to inspect and re-pot in the summer but left this until the end of August.  What I found was that the bulbs had already formed extensive roots.  Rather than disturb these roots, I abandoned my plans.  But it may be that this species breaks its dormancy earlier than other snowdrops.

[KentGardener]

It looks virused.

The flower stem on the right does look a bit virused, Mark, and the leaf on the left looks like it might have virus or stagonosphora. I'm starting to think virtually all snowdrops carry viruses unless they're brand new seedlings, and even then I'm not sure. So many can look okay at the start of the season and then start to look virused as the weather warms up and virus activity picks up. My 'Sophie North' looked fine earlier, but now they look virusy.   

Many of you may remember my concerns last year about virus in my own garden!  I ended up moving at least 2 dozen of my Galanthus to my parent's garden during spring 2008. 

Many of you may also know that my favourite saying is "Every day is a school day!"  .....and I hope that every year I gain a little more experience. 

Something said to me recently by an SRGC member has stuck in my mind - and possibly eased some of my previous fears is.....

'Late Season Virus Symptons'

I have only had LSVS mentioned to me, for the first time, a few weeks ago.  It really has made me think that if things look crap at the beginning of the season then they are most probably sick - but if, after a happy growing period; post flowering or being dug up or setting seed or rubbish weather or any other strain on their normal cycle; then it could just be some 'resident viral symptoms that may possibly exist in many snowdrops'?......

If nothing else - this could have given us something to argue about now that the photographs of flowering snowdrops are coming to their end for Spring 2009.

With my best wishes

John 

[Martin Baxendale]

As far as I'm aware, John, all plant viruses become more active during warmer weather and less active during cold weather, so the symptoms of any virus-infected plant that makes leaves during winter, like snowdrops, may not show symptoms early on when the weather is cold, but produce symptoms when the weather warms up. And it is later in the season that you tend to see the worst viral symptoms appearing on  snowdrops (often ones that earlier seemed quite healthy). I think that's why the whole virus busines scan be so confusing. Plants can be sold early in the year when the seller sees no virus, then later  the buyer spots it.

Symptoms that are due purely to poor growing conditions, stress, lack of nutrients, etc with no virus involvement should appear early on and improve as the weather warms up and growing conditions improve, e.g. warmer root temperatures, more sunlight for photosynthesis etc.

Yesterday I also moved my clump of Ron Mackenzie's "virus-free" Augustus because, although it always lools clean to start with, at this time of year it starts to show leaf stripes.

The answer in the long run I would think is to raise lots of new snowdrops from seed and select for virus resistance, gradually building resistance into future generations so that the bulbs can live with the viruses and still perform well.

[mark smyth]

Bulbs root from July!

16th July '06
2nd August '03
23rd August '06

[Maggi Young]

A good example of why some bulbs really resent being dry packed and sold in bags in September!

[KentGardener]

Bulbs root from July!

16th July '06
2nd August '03
23rd August '06

Hi Mark

Unfortunately I wasn't a member of SRGC in 2003 - I hope you don't mind but could I ask what each of these pictures are of please?

Many thanks

John

[mark smyth]

You want me to remember 6 years ago! I can hardy remember what I did last month. The photos show Narcissus, Galanthus and Narcissus.