Galanthus October 2012

[pehe]

The first Galanthus Reginae Olgae in  my garden

Poul

[mark smyth]

Repotting continues here and yesterday I found two pots with nothing inside and despite spraying with an insecticide two Narcissus fly grubs.  One had eaten it's bulb and had started eating in to another.

[Martin Baxendale]

On a less successful note, I splashed out on some snowdrops in January including:
‘Blewbury Tart’
‘Jonathan’
‘Mighty Atom’
‘Mrs Macnamara’
‘Rosemary Burnham’.
All were lovely healthy plants.

I followed instructions by the book, gritty compost at the right proportions, a little sharp sand bed for the bulbs to sit on, semi-shaded location, gentle care and lots of positive conversation.

On inspection yesterday the pots were empty. Is that normal?  

Were the pots left uncovered and open to the rain all through the summer?

[hadacekf]

Galanthus reginae-olgae in my garden

[Paddy Tobin]

How wonderful, Franz. They will not grow in the open garden here at all but I  have started growing a few in pots in the glasshouse and  may continue to do so as they give interest so early in the season.

Paddy

[Hagen Engelmann]

I enjoy the pic of your lovely Galanthus, sehr hübsch  anzusehen, Franz.

[Alan_b]

Sorry, Maren, I meant eaten by insects; in my case Swift Moth larvae.  I sometimes find these instead of the snowdrops but equally well they could have pupated into moths and flown off.

[Maren]

Martin,

they were in a rain shadow position and in a shady, well sheltered place on a table against a fence. Maybe they got too dry during the summer? I did water occasionally.

A friend tells me they might have frozen to death. But even then, I would have expected to find some organic debris.

I'm puzzled but in future I think I'll spend my money on things I know how to grow successfully. It was heartbreaking, even throwing away the labels hurt.

[Martin Baxendale]

Maren, if the snowdrops were recently potted, bought in the green, and were then frozen solid for a long period in the hard freezes of last winter then the roots and bulbs may well have been killed but had enough residual strength to keep the leaves going for a while, especially in cool weather. At that time if year the bulbs would have been very flaccid with virtually no swollen bulb scales, almost just a basal plate and leaves with quite papery remains of the previous year's scales. So there wouldn't have been much to rot, and I can imagine they may well have rotted away without trace over the following spring and summer.

I'm repotting snowdrops at the moment and will see if I have spares to replace at least one or two of the bulbs you lost. Will be in touch.

[freddyvl]

A few weeks later than last year but at last there they are ... the season has also started here in Belgium ! Later than previous years caused by the long dry period during the summer months until the end of September. But better late than never ! A few pictures of G. reg.-olg. ssp. reg.-olg. Other G. reginae-olgae are above the ground as well, for instance 'Cambridge'. G. reginae-olgae species and varieties are doing well in our sandy soils and have no problems with the cold winters (last year till -20° C).

[kentish_lass]

Franz & Freddie - what lovely regina olgae.  I love the way they have the naked stems and no leaves when they emerge.  I have tried 3 times to grow them and again this year they have not come up.  I may try once more.

Maren - I know how disappointing it is when you lose expensive bulbs like that.  Your post made me go and check my lattice pots.  I made a temporary bed for them over the summer months under 2 conifers which have had all the lower branches removed as they were dead.  This allowed for plenty of light to come in but not much rain.

I dug in loads of grit and made trenches lined with grit.  The bulbs were planted in a gritty mix, on a bed of sand then surrounded with sharp grit and topped with my gritty soil mix.  Yesterday and today I lifted 115 lattice pots.  My finds were varied.  Many had roots coming through the pots, loads had diminished bulbs ie. 4 planted and only 1 left.  Some were multi- nosed huge bulbs and all I had left was a tiny offset.

Then I completely lost 12 pots.  No larvae and in most cases no signs of a bulb at all.  They just rotted away.  My saddest loss was Ruby Baker.  These are my losses:-

Ruby Baker - very very sad 
Virescens x 4 bulbs - wanted for a long time
Greenish x 2 bulbs - wanted for a long time
Ray Cobb - very sad 
The Linns x 4 bulbs
Lapwing x 2 huge bulbs (my second attempt with this one)
Dreycott Greentips x 3
regina olgae ssp. vernalis
Angelique - for the second time
Hedgehog x 4
Fieldgate Superb
Jade - just one tiny weeny piece left from a huge multi nosed bulb....

I am looking at over £200 to replace them and I am gutted.  As this area seems not to attract Narcissus Fly so much being shaded I am going to direct plant small bulbs in future.  I am sure they will survive better as I am finding it difficult to get the 'mix' right in lattice pots.

Will post photos of the area later
Here we go again 
Jennie

[kentish_lass]

Here are photos of the area where I sunk all the lattice pots.  I did give them a very slight spray with the hosepipe in summer as I was scared they would dry out.  All the surrounding woodland plants needed a water from time to time as well.
It would be impossible to keep lattice pots dry during summer if they were sunk anywhere in the garden - so why does this happen.  Surely if everyone lost 10% of their expensive bulbs every summer it would not be worth using the pots?

Jennie

[mark smyth]

Kentish Lass it's too late in the year to be lifting lattice pots out of the ground. All the roots you break will not regrow.

My 3 Ron Ginns have broken down in to 15 small bulbs

[kentish_lass]

Thanks for telling me Mark.  I won't touch no more.  To be honest the ones with roots through the pots were few and far between.  Many of my snowdrops in lattice pots do not even have roots yet.....hope that's not another bad sign.

I will bed them all back in and leave them alone now - my panic got the better of me.  I think by checking the pots now I have prevented any further damage to small bulbs that may have rotted.

Jennie

[Alan_b]

Some growers may not like to admit it, but I think everybody loses a certain number of snowdrops each year.  If you have established a decent clump then it's virtually impossible to tell unless the whole clump goes.  But if you have caught the white fever and are buying expensive snowdrops in ones and twos then it's very obvious indeed.

Snowdrops fall prey to diseases like stagonospora and botrytis, insect pests like narcissus fly and swift moth larvae and might be moved if not eaten by animals digging around.  They don't like to be too wet in summer, although in winter it seems they can cope.

 I'm sure if you studied snowdrops in the wild you would find a balance between a high rate of propagation and a high rate of attrition.  What we are doing, taking single bulbs of new cultivars propagated by twin-scaling that are not even established as garden-worthy and expecting all our snowdrops to live, flies in the face of nature.

And the best place to plant snowdrops is close to other well-established snowdrops so you know the conditions are right.  But make sure the new snowdrops are disease-free before you do.  I do this by growing snowdrops in large pots (3 litre, I think) and this works fairly well, although I lost one or two in the really cold spells of the last two years, over and above from the general attrition that everyone suffers