Galanthus November and December 2007

[Martin Baxendale]

back to snowdrops - our Martin has kept it quiet that he has written an article in the current RHS Daffodil, Snowdrop and Tulip year book 2007/2008 that I reading now

Don't expect too much, Mark. It's really just a filler piece written at short notice to fill an unexpected hole. Given the choice, I wouldn't have written anything about my snowdrop breeding for a few more years. Most of my (hoped for) results are still in the seedling beds and seed pots. The article is all about what I hope to achieve, which I can't help feeling is a bit of a cheat. I'd have preferred to have waited and written about my successes in a few years time, but they needed an article and there's not that much snowdrop breeding going on so...I suppose something's better than nothing in this sort of area. 

[annew]

Where'd you get it from, Mark?

[mark smyth]

it was on sale at our AGS meeting. You get a mention also. Will I mail you mine and I'll get another one next weekend?

[biodiversite]

Hi everybody, and sorry for the long time I did not come.

I have a Galanthus reginae-olgae flowering for two weeks, but it came to me as ssp. vernalis : may I have to labelled it as G. reginae-olgae ssp. reginae-olgae ? It seems to me to be a diminutive form of my "true" G. r-o ssp. r-o.

Moreover, my G. ikariae ssp. snogerupii have begining to flower this week end : usually it is on the end of december and january !!!

[snowdropman]

Hello Biodiversite

Welcome back.

Here in the south of England the snowdrops have become quite confused by the strange weather that we have been having (we had very cold weather in August/September & I think that this fooled the snowdrops into thinking that autumn had come and they started to produce strong roots - then in October the temperatures suddenly warmed up again and were 5C higher than the normal temperatures for this time of the year, & we did not have any rain for a month, which combined to stop many snowdrops in their tracks - now, over the past few weeks the temperatures have dropped again and we have had several frosts, together with a little rain, which has got the snowdrops going again).

Your g. reginae-olgae subsp. vernalis could well be correctly named - I have g. reginae-olgae subsp. vernalis 'Alex Duguid' in flower at the moment (this snowdrop was originally distributed as 'Mr Duguid's Christmas flowering snowdrop') - the really strange thing is that some of my g. reginae-olgae, which have usually flowered by now, have not even emerged from the soil yet.

Like you, my g. ikariae subsp. snogerupii has already emerged - this usually flowers a few weeks earlier than g. ikariae and I have noticed that, with the very mild winters of the past few years, my g. ikariae has been emerging/flowering up to two months earlier than expected.

[biodiversite]

Thank you for your answer. Please let me know : if G. r.o. ssp. vernalis can flower in autumn, what are the differences that allow us to differenciate the 2 subspecies ?

Here is a (bad) photo of my G. r.o. ssp. vernalis :

[Martin Baxendale]

Please let me know : if G. r.o. ssp. vernalis can flower in autumn, what are the differences that allow us to differenciate the 2 subspecies ? Here is a photo of my G. r.o. ssp. vernalis :

Flowering time is really the only way to differentiate reginae-olgae from r.o. ssp. vernalis. Which highlights the problem with differentiating and naming subspecies and forms (and even cultivars) based on their time of flowering - which of course can vary so much according to the climate where they're grown (and if the climate changes everywhere!)

If I was shown your snowdrop and told "It's flowering now. What is it?" with no other clues as to naming, I'd have to say reginae-olgae. And I think any other snowdrop grower would probably do the same.

Personally, I don't think r.o. vernalis stands up as a ssp. and should simply be a later (or not so later!) flowering variant of r.o. Unless anyone else knows of any strong distinguishing features that I'm not aware of.

Sorry to butt in before Chris has a chance to answer, but I find myself up in the wee hours helping get young son off for a school exchange trip to France. So this is what four in the morning looks like, Maggi! 

[Maggi Young]

So this is what four in the morning looks like, Maggi!

Yup, 'orrible, ain't it? As it happens, I had a reasonable night last night and was in bed asleep by about 2am!

[snowdropman]

I think that Martin has said it all - it really is very difficult to differentiate the various forms of reginae-olgae, especially when they are growing in our gardens, as opposed to their natural habitats.

The only difference that comes to mind is that, for me, the leaves on subsp. vernalis are always present at flowering time, and usually quite well developed, whereas with subsp. reginae-olgae the leaves can be very short or, in some cases, absent altogether (but again, like the flowering time, this provides only a very generalised guide & much variation occurs).

The differentiation between sub species is probably more obvious when growing in their natural habitat, but even here there can be wide variation due to the many variables e.g. variations in climate from year to year, soil, altitude, geographical location etc etc.

Particularly in their natural habitats, the plants are constantly adapting to these different growing conditions, with one thought in mind - how best to survive! - and this is reflected in the often very wide ranges given for flowering periods in the various published reference works.

[Anthony Darby]

Ah, I see M. Biodiversite, like me, combines an interest in reptiles (tortoises) with plants.

[biodiversite]

Ah, I see M. Biodiversite, like me, combines and interest in reptiles (tortoises) with plants.

  yes, and I hope in next months to write a article for a french tortoise revue about the integration of tortoise structures with the garden in general 

[Martin Baxendale]

As Chris rightly says, the pattern of leaf development through the flowering time is supposed to be another defining feature for reginae-olgae vernalis but there's a lot of variation which seems to negate the point - just as it did when reginae-olgae and corcyrencis were differentiated by leaf development or lack of it.

According to "Snowdrops" by Bishop et al, "the earliest flowering plants have shorter leaves than the later flowering clones at the onset of flowering." That doesn't really sound to me like a very strong basis on which to differentiate a sub-species. I suspect that, especially as climate change starts to muddle up flowering times generally in Europe, the sub-species status of r.o. vernalis will eventually disappear.

On the subject of flowering times, my autumn snowdrops have also been all over the place after this year's wierd weather. Many of them, like Chris's have been very late, and some don't look happy. My reg-olgae 'Hyde Lodge' for example are only just appearing and are coming up very slowly with small flowers, due to the dryness of the soil, which is usually pretty damp by this time of year but dry this year.

There seems to be plenty of moisure deep down in my soil from the earlier rains, so trees can reach it to sustain their autumn colour for a long period, but shallow-rooting stuff like autumn bulbs are suffering as the top few inches of soil are parched due to lack of autumn rains. Even the recent rain has barely wetted the grouind.

Yet, as has been mentioned, some normally Jan-flowering  snowdrops are already poking their noses up. The overall effect, as last year, looks like being a compressed snowdrop season, with everything coming up almost at once.

[snowdropman]

Martin, you are lucky with your 'Hyde Lodge' - not a sign of this form at all for me, so far this year!

The lack of any substantial early autumn rain, for the second year in a row, is a real problem as the autumn flowering galanthus really do want to have their roots sitting in moist soil at this time.

I have actually watered some of my r-o's this year, because the soil around them was just like dust, but this of course only had a temporary effect &, as you say, they need much more constant & steady rain over the autumn period, to really get those top few inches of soil wet enough to make a real difference.

g. peshmenii seem to have been particularly badly affected this year - most of mine have emerged, with tiny leaves showing, but have then just stopped in their tracks, with little or no further leaf development & very few plants producing flowers. I did notice a little spurt of growth after the decent bit of rain that we had here one day last week, but we are now getting towards the back end of their 'normal' flowering period, so I guess that nothing much else will happen this year.

[Martin Baxendale]

Chris, I started watering my reginae-olgaes as well just a couple of days ago. First time I've ever felt the need to do that! It seems to have helped a bit with the Hyde Lodge, which have started to come up a bit faster I noticed in the garden just now.

My r.o. Tilebarn Jamie performed even more poorly, with tiny little distorted flowers. But then T. Jamie never does as well for me as Hyde Lodge. I don't find it a robust clone here, certainly nowhere near as reliable a garden plant as Hyde Lodge, which I just love to bits.

Have you tried poking around to see if your Hyde Lodge are making shoots below soil level? As you say, it;s getting very late for them not to be showing at all. Don't want to be a doom-sayer, but with the very wet summer I'd be worrying by now if they'd rotted, especially if they're not tucked right under a shrub. Fingers crossed, I hope that's not the case but if they have suffered in the wet summer and there are some struggling remnants of bulbs there making no shoots then it might be an idea to get them up and do some emergency rescue work on them.

For what it's worth, for anyone on the forum who finds rare snowdrops failing to shoot in autumn/winter and discovers they've been half-eaten or half rotted away, you can still clean up and chip any remains even in autumn/winter. I experimented with late chipping and found that late Autumn is still okay, and I'm pretty sure even winter would do. The autumn/winter chips grew away fine and caught up with the summer chips. In fact I recall that they made bulbils faster, maybe because the snowdrops were into their normal growing season rather than making bulbils on the chips in what should be the dormant season. You don't always even have to have some basal plate left to chip. I've had chips of snowdrop scales with no basal plate make bulbils along the side of the chip.

[snowdropman]

Martin

re 'Tilebarn Jamie' - I too have found this one to be quite variable. Last year I had one particular clump, which in the previous 2 years had produced really good flowers, turn completely blind - plenty of leaf growth, but not a hint of a flower. I dug it up earlier this year, planted a few bulbs back in the same spot & in two other places in the garden and all of them have flowered strongly again this year, including producing twin scapes! My conclusion is that this must be one of those snowdrops that really does not like its bulbs growing too close together, so it does need to be lifted & split every year or two, if it is to continue to perform well (probably also benefitted from a good feed too!).

re 'Hyde Lodge' - I have been putting off the evil moment, but I guess that I am going to have to bite the bullet!

You are right to stress the possibilities for rescuing damaged/ailing bulbs - I first realised this when my g. elwesii 'Henly Greenspot' failed to surface - I completely forgot about it & where it grew then got overrun by cyclamen. This year, which was 2 years after it was last seen, lo and behold it surfaced again and produced good leaf growth - I lifted the bulb, which looked healthy and was a good size & am hopeful that it will flower again next year. I thought that if nature can perform this sort of healing operation by itself, unaided, then I ought to be able to do something along similar lines and am now far less likely to automatically dispose of the damaged/ailing bulbs of rare snowdrops.

When I dug up my single bulb of g. plicatus 'Chequers' in the summer, I was delighted to find that it had produced two good sized offsets, but then realised that all that was left of the mother bulb was just the outer layer of the bulb - the rest of the bulb, including the basal plate and the top, had completely disappeared (I assume that the narcissus fly had been at work). I was about to discard the outer layer when I noticed that it had two bulbils growing from the top of this layer - I potted up said bulbils still attached to their food source, the outer layer, and will be watching to see if they grow on.

Very interested to read what you have said about your success with autumn/winter chips - this is a significant breakthrough. Do you do anything different with these autumn/winter chips, when you first pot them up e.g. in terms of mix, where you keep the pots etc?

You mention that the absence of a basal plate has not been a bar to producing bulbils on the side of the chip - have you actually been able to grow these on to produce normal flowering bulbs? I know that several people have been successful in producing bulbils from the 'tops' of the bulbs (which had previously always been discarded), sometimes in great numbers, and am waiting to hear if bulbs have grown.