Tangled Branches: Cultivated
happenings in and around my zone 6b gardens in northern Virginia and in central Virginia
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day
It's Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day, and instead of propping up some past-prime annuals (like last time), I have fresh new flowers to show. How many flowers? 10.5 (one of them got chewed in half). All from the same clump of snowdrops. 
Why this clump is consistently early, I can't say. I have others of the same species (Galanthus elwesii) very nearby, but they'll bloom much later. A couple of years ago, I decided I'd increase the snowdrops with checkbook horticulture and planted another group not too far from these. They came up and bloomed the first year and then disappeared.
So that's it for this GBBD. Thanks, Carol, for this great idea and being a wonderful host.
PS. You should have seen what I had blooming last Janaury 15.
19 Comments:
Your snowdrops look so fresh and healthy. I have not been able to get these to come up even once, let alone return in our TN garden. I didn't know they were difficult to grow, anyone have any helpful hints?
I wish I knew why 1 group of the identical species of Snowdrop blooms earlier than others. I have the same situation, & 2 of the groups are only about 10 feet apart. 1 group of mine are almost about to bloom.
I'm sorry, but I laughed when I read something had chewed 1 of the Snowdrops. I'm trying to imagine what would be prowling your January garden to eat half a Snowdrop. A groundhog with insomnia? A confused squirrel? Slugs wearing fur coats?
In the words of Spencer Tracy, "Not much meat on her, but what's there is cherce."
Snowdrops don't grow here, alas - thank you for sharing yours, Entangled~
Annie at the Transplantable Rose
I went back and looked at your pictures from last January, quite a difference. I wonder why less is blooming this year?
And I love that phrase 'checkbook horticulture'!
Carol, May Dreams Gardens
Frances: Believe it or not, I'm not all that good with snowdrops. Supposedly they're happier when transplanted "in the green" instead of waiting until the leaves die down, but it's not easy to find them available for purchase in that condition. That said, all mine are mail-ordered fall-planted bulbs. I think it's good to plant them as soon as possible once you have them, but I don't really have any other advice. Maybe someone else will jump in here?
Mr. McGregor's Daughter: I once thought maybe I had planted this group at a shallower depth than the others, but that was just a guess. All my surviving G. elwesii bulbs were planted at the same time from the same mail order, so you'd think they'd all be the same.
I blame the squirrels, but if it wasn't them, then it may have been the rabbits. Whoever it was must have taken a little nibble and said "eeeuuuwwww" because they left the rest alone. Slugs in fur coats? Let's hope not! If they start doing that I'm moving.
Annie: A very succinct quote! And I'm always happy to have the snowdrop-deprived stop by. ;-)
Carol: Last January was even more ridiculously warm than this year. I never had so many things in bloom so early.
I always feel I should do more propagation and less buying - I must be a cheapskate at heart.
Ahhhhhh...one of the most perfect of flowers, the snowdrop. Mine are now politely covered in heaps of snow again, but come March, they'll put in an appearance, if the snow goes and we have a bit of mild. But I love seeing yours so early, and really had fun looking at last year's flowers (although the hellebores were a bit depressing to me. They hate me!)
How beautiful - and nice that you have them blooming! Mine don't start blooming until much later and I don't have a clue which variety they are. Your little partially eaten clump does indeed look happy.
Checkbook horticulture . . . I love it. We do a lot of CH around here. Your pic of the snowdrops is so pretty. Thanks. Dee
You lucky girl you to have snowdrops to show for GBBD. I have snowdrops too, at least I did last year, but I can't find them and I don't remember where I put them. Hope they will show in the next few weeks, until then I'll gaze (with envy) at yours.
Happy GBBD!
Snowdrops seem to be elusive. I seem to recall I planted many bulbs 2 years ago an only had a very few flowers (3-5)last year. No sign of them this year but I thought they came up in Feb or March? No sign of the Christmas Hellebores H. niger, either which supposedly blooms on Jan. 6th if you can believe Wikipedia :
"One subspecies blooms in the abbey in England believed by some to be established by St. Thomas. There is a source that claims: It blooms near the new calendar date of January 6. This date had been Christmas day under the old Julian Calendar. So when Christmas day under the new calendar came around and the flower did not bloom, it was such a frightful omen that England did not adopt the Gregorian calendar at that time in 1588; but adoption had to wait until 1751."
Is this another omen? Maybe we need to adopt a new calendar.
Jodi: Sorry about the hellebores! Mine seem fairly happy in the woods, although they never look quite like the catalog pictures.
Pam: Maybe your snowdrops are G. nivalis? They bloom later than the G. elwesii. I think G. nivalis is more dainty and elegant, but OTOH I really like the earliness of G. elwesii.
Dee: I feel a spell of checkbook horticulture coming on soon, as I'm looking through the catalogs. It's fun as long as the checks last. ;-)
Yolanda Elizabet: I'll be watching for your snowdrops!
Ki: I thought I was the only one who had trouble keeping snowdrops. And I don't see any sign of the other clumps yet, but I haven't looked very hard either. Looking back over my archives, it seems they mostly bloom between mid-February and mid-March.
I hadn't heard that version of the calendar change story - interesting! I always thought the reasons were more political than horticultural. ;-) But it's funny you should mention it. At Christmas, my mother bought some Christmas-themed paper napkins which featured hellebore flowers as part of the design. I happened to remark at Christmas dinner that the flowers were hellebores and known as "Christmas Rose" because they bloom around Christmas time. My remark was met with complete silence and glazed looks from every single member of my family. So I continued on "I can tell you're all eager to know more about hellebores....". And then I stopped. :-D
Lovely snowdrops!! No snow here in Florida!!
Now that is a beautiful sight when the temperature hit -40c today. I love snowdrops!
I love your expression, checkbook horticulture. I often rely on that, especially in springtime.
Matt & Kate: Thanks for stopping by!
Here's one of the things I really like about blogging - Matt's in Florida where the current temperature is 48 F (9 C), and Kate's in Saskatchewan where the current temperature is (1.4 F) -17 C (I bet you're glad you've been knitting), and everybody can look at snowdrops blooming in between. Amazing.
Here's another interesting thing:
-40 C = -40 F
That's cold no matter how you measure it.
Hi there, Entangled :-)
I too love to see snowdrops and I too seem to 'mislay' them in my garden!
Over here in the UK it is suggested the best way to plant snowdrops is 'in the green'. Mail order catalogues offer them after they have finished flowering in clumps without soil - I don't think I've seen them sold in the garden centres like this. Perhaps this year I should try again :-D
I did a quick internet search for info on snowdrops in the green and came across this video :-D
I enjoyed looking back to your last year's flowers - especially the hellebores. I planted some young ones in Autumn but it doesn't look like they will flower for me this year. I look forward to seeing them sometime :-D
Hi again :-)
I see my link for the video didn't work. Here is the full url http://www.videojug.com/film/how-to-plant-snowdrops-in-the-green .
Every year I decide to plant snowdrops, and every year i forget. next year - definitely!
Hi Shirl, thanks for that video link! And BTW I have the same watering can as in the video (from Ikea). There's one small specialist nursery here in the US that ships snowdrops in the green. I think it's a one-person operation and he doesn't have a website, last I knew. Kathy Purdy posted about it a couple of years ago, and I wrote for his catalog but then choked on the prices.
Sue: I have that same problem, but if we had more nurseries shipping them in the green, at least we'd have the opportunity to plant them in the spring while we're thinking about them ;-)
Post a Comment
<< Tangled Branches: Cultivated, main page