Galanthus January 2012

[Maggi Young]

Id give the spikes and the 3 eyed , 5 legged cat a home.....provided the cat  doesn't poop on the snowdrop beds  

Emma, you're a soft touch... and you KNOW that cat would do exactly that! 

[Oakwood]

..would you want a kitten with three eyes or five legs?

The poor thing - I would find it a loving home.   

Dimitri hasn't thrown his three-eyed cat out the door just yet. 

johnw

yep, John, I can't))) it was just replanted in the far far far snowdropless corner of my garden for further analytic executions))))

[johnw]

Id give the spikes and the 3 eyed , 5 legged cat a home.....provided the cat  doesn't poop on the snowdrop beds  

Emma, you're a soft touch... and you KNOW that cat would do exactly that! 

True, better a five-legged dog.

johnw

[johnw]

"in my garden for further analytic executions"

Good one Dimitri, I must remember this. 

johnw

[kentish_lass]

Thanks JohnW in Canada for your idea on plunging the pots in bark chippings.  I spent today sorting them all out into various receptacles - very large tree pots, big window boxes and crates.  I half filled them with bark added a layer of sharp grit and then filled in around the pots with more bark and finished the top with high grade pine bark chippings that I use in my potting mix.  They are now standing under the shade of a tree partially plunged in the ground and surrounded with more bark.  If that don't work....at least I have tried.  I have attached some photos.  Apparently the weather is warming up again now  

Caroline -  Are your pots plunged in sand with leaves on top or are they totally in leaves?  They certainly look snug    I have a brick coldframe similar to that with various neglected plants in.  I could be using that frame for snowdrops - will have to have a sort out.

Thanks for the ideas.....

[johnw]

Jennie - Given your mild dampish winters and low sunlight you might want to keep an eye on the surface mulching and keep it to a bare minimum.  We really should have removed the surface mulch as shown in my photo soon after taking the plastic off the frames to prevent any fungal attacks on the stems. By January with our cold we can be quite certain nothing is growing until mid March.  Just a thought.

You would not be pleased to be here today.  In fact I am not pleased to be here today. It is now about 15F at 4pm.

johnw

[kentish_lass]

John - if our weather warms up I will take off lots of the top mulch.  Infact I hope to plant them soon as I am not happy with the drainage holes in those cheap window boxes - if it rains they could get waterlogged!  15F is very cold indeed - no wonder your snowdrops stay underground till March.

[Carolyn Walker]

Caroline -  Are your pots plunged in sand with leaves on top or are they totally in leaves?  They certainly look snug    I have a brick coldframe similar to that with various neglected plants in.  I could be using that frame for snowdrops - will have to have a sort out.

My pots are sitting on the ground, lined up with no space between them and then covered with ground leaves on the top and exposed sides.  It gets much colder here than where you are and the cold is not a problem even in the most frigid winters, however, there may be other considerations with your climate.

[Carolyn Walker]

G. elwesii on November 20.  I have been planting hundreds of dried G. elwesii bulbs for a number of years and they bloom from November to March.

I meant to remark on this earlier but that is the same season as in England.  G. elwesii that flower in November are quite rare, December-flowering less so, and so on with the peak flowering month being February, then a sharp drop-off into March.  It's worth devoting a bit of TLC to the ones that flower early in order to bulk them up.

Actually of all the G. elwesii I have planted quite a few bloom in the fall.  I keep meaning to separate them and give them the TLC you recommend.  Maybe next year.

The three photos below are of a snowdrop given to a friend by a landscape designer who got it from one of here customers (i.e., it could have a name but it's lost).  It blooms here at the end of November so I am thinking it is a G. elwesii.  The X looks much more distinct than other cultivars that I have seen.  Does anyone know what it is?  Carolyn

[kentish_lass]

Caroline - what a beauty.  That is a gorgeous healthy clump.  You are so lucky not to suffer from all the problems we seem to get over here.  I would love to plant my bulbs in the ground and know I will see them next year.

I am sure someone with more knowledge than myself can help you more with identification.

[mark smyth]

yes it's G. elwesii

[Alan_b]

It blooms here at the end of November so I am thinking it is a G. elwesii.  The X looks much more distinct than other cultivars that I have seen.  Does anyone know what it is?

Most of the early flowering elwesii (and it is an elwesii) have a rather uninteresting mark that is confined to the apex of the inner petal.  The exception I can think of is "Peter Gatehouse" and your snowdrop is not that one but it does have a large nicely-shaped mark so I would say it is well worth looking after.   

[Thomas Seiler]

Very good X-mark and very good shape for an elwesii flowering before Christmas, Carolyn. And an impressive clump!

Here impressions from my garden this weekend with bright sunshine but frost in the shade:
Galanthus 'Bess'
Galanthus 'Ding Dong'
Galanthus 'Sir Herbert Maxwell'

[kentish_lass]

Lovely Thomas - all we need now is a little sun to open them up    I love your photo of Sir Herbert Maxwell with all the beautiful colours and textures of different leaves as a backdrop.  Very nice.

[kentish_lass]

I put here G. woronowii normal flwrs from my last year spring tour into the W Transcaucasia and also some Horror plants from there and one more unhappy plant of G. nivalis I named Chuguyster find in our BG. So, what do you choose to really grow??       

Beautiful photos from the wild Dimitri.  The photo with woronowii and Cyclamen is breathtaking - what a wonderful sight to see in nature.