Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => General Gardening => Topic started by: Hampshire Hog on March 18, 2015, 13:42
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Hi all saw some snowdrops being sold in pots yesterday at £1 for one snowdrop!!
Decided it must be time to split the clumps in my garden.
Just dug up 3 clumps and planted 40 new groups of 5-10 bulbs.
Realise I have planted upwards of £200 worth of bulbs at no cost!!
Cheers HH
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Yes, I bought some on eBay and planted them in my lawn - but they weren't that expensive :ohmy:
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Yes, now is a good time. However, I can see that the thought of it may bring a tear to one of our member's eyes!
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I paid £70 / 1,000 for mine (gone up a bit since, but not much) from
www.eurobulbs.co.uk
Starting to clump up nicely now (3 years on) :)
(https://kgarden.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/img_5679_snowdrops_18feb2015.jpg)
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A pound each for the common snowdrop is excessive! :ohmy:
There are many places you can buy them by the 100 in the green.
I do buy special named snowdrops for my collection but I restrict myself to £30 per bulb.
And I have most of the ones that I really wanted now. They are bulking up nicely and are getting split this year.
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I do buy special named snowdrops for my collection but I restrict myself to £30 per bulb.
That's a bottomless-pit game!
I've got some too, but the novelty has worn off (and I thought I had only bought ones that were particularly different / interesting ...) ... notwithstanding that I still have a few on my Must Have list - haven't bought any thing year though, for the first time in a few ...
Each June I try to persuade myself that I brave enough to twin-scale mine to bulk them up faster ...
... mind you, if I did it this year, rather than previous years, I reckon I would find that each pot has several in it, so I could risk all-bar-one of the bulbs of each variety :)
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You are dead right about the bottomless pit game.
I try to get ones that are really special, like blewbury tart, trymm and the yellow ones. and the really fat ones like Diggory, Augustus and Marjorie Broughton.
I didn't get any last year but got a few this year. I think I now have all the ones I really want.
The most wonderful addition to my collection was Trymm and Yellow Trymm. And I was given them free by a wonderful gardener at a house we were visiting. Just got chatting to him about the snowdrops in the garden and told him about my collection. It turned out he was a collector too and gave me two pots of snowdrops. I nearly kissed him.
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Reads like my Got / Wish List too :)
I would like some more that have markings on the outer petals - can't remember the name off hand, but the markings are vertical stripes rather than solid colour (which I think Trym has?)
I think most?? of mine are on my blog
Not sure which, if any, have bulked up enough for spares, but if you see anything you fancy let me know and I'll have a look.
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I have just been perusing your projects. Wow. What a huge amount of land. It all looks wonderful and I am trying not to be too jealous. :D
Are the hands holding the snowdrops in the pictures yours? They look exactly like mine. :lol: :lol:
If you were to have any spares of Greenbrush, Lapwing, Sandersii or the Unknown yellow I would love to do swaps if I have anything you might like.
I have Elfin, Blonde Inge, Trym and Yellow Trym that have all bulked up enough to swap. I am planning to split them in the next few days as well as find somewhere to plant the mulberry tree that arrived this week.
I will have a look to see if I have any others. I may have some of the Autumn flowering ones too.
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Are the hands holding the snowdrops in the pictures yours? They look exactly like mine.
Gardening gloves never worn here!
If you were to have any spares of Greenbrush, Lapwing, Sandersii or the Unknown yellow I would love to do swaps if I have anything you might like.
I'll have a look and see if any of them have made enough babies.
(I've updated the page, no more photos but including the names of some that I have bought that had not made it to the page with a photo as yet ... and a Wishlist which is now hopelessly out of date and could do with review as some of them look to be things I initially settled on and then later found that some of them are not Good Do'ers ...)
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Yes, now is a good time. However, I can see that the thought of it may bring a tear to one of our member's eyes!
moi? :)
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Gardening gloves never worn here either. :lol:
I know what you mean about some snowdrops not being good doers. Some of mine look a bit sad and when I loose one it really annoys.
I have been waiting to split the snowdrops as I have been waiting for himself to build their new home and I am going out there this morning when I have finished the bread,(never a good idea to make bread in between gardening), to split and replant.
I get plant pots and cut the bottom out of them, then dig a hole and put the bottomless pot into it.
I then fill it with a mixture of John Innes 3, grit and blood, bone and fish and replant the bulbs. Then I top with some coloured gravel and chilli powder to try and deter the ******* foxes from digging them up to get to the blood bone and fish. :mad: :mad:
I am sure you do know, but in case you don't, have you checked out/signed up to Avon bulbs for their snowdrop lists, they have a good long list of specials, and have some left if you give them a call. I think Pompom and pearldrop were some of them. Also North Green sell specials too.
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Thanks - I do get the Avon Lady's emails :) I looked at Trym, but the others I didn't think were that exciting so I No-Bid ...
I know of folk planting cherished Snowdrop bulbs in pond plant baskets (plunged into the ground) so that water / nutrients etc. readily available, but the basket can be dug up and make it easy to ensure that all of that variety are "together".
Mine are in tall Clematis / "Long Tom" pots, and against a North facing wall where they are abandoned for the Summer. I ought to put some fine mesh over them, when the foliage dies down to keep the predators out ...
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Sorry if this is a silly question but how best should I split snowdrops? :blush: I've never had any before but last year moved house and the garden has several big clumps which appear to have been there forever.
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Dig them up, split into smaller clumps, replant some in the old places and the rest in new places. :)
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Ah.. simples! :) thanks
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Thanks for interesting comments. Clearly need to check out the range of snowdrops available in future.
Cheers HH
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Clearly need to check out the range of snowdrops available in future.
My view is that if you want to plant some snowdrops in, say, a woodland walk than just plant the bog standard, and cheap, Galanthus nivalis. I planted quite a few doubles (G. flore pleno) thinking they would add interest ... when you walk through the woodland now you couldn't spot which was which. Same would be true of my "fancy" ones, you'd have tog et down on your hands and knees to actually see how they differed.
There are a couple of exceptions:
Early (or late) varieties. Obviously they extend the flowering season.
Tall ones. Although is is obviously easier to see that they are taller :D I'm not sure they make any difference to a walk-through-the-woods.
For me the fancy ones are as a collection, and if we have friends round for a meal I can put a little vase next to each place setting with a different looking type of snowdrop flower. But its just showing off ... no horticultural merit that I can think of!!
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When I went on the snowdrop walk at Anglesea Abbey they had some Augustus or Melanie Broughton planted in with the Galanthus Nivalis and you could see the difference because they had fat, chunky flowers.
Although I don't think you could tell the difference from a distance.
I am surprised you cut the snowdrops and bring them into the house Kristen, there is superstition that you bring death into the house if you bring cut snowdrops inside. :D :D I am not taking any chances at my age. :lol: :lol: :lol:
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All sorts of superstitions about cut flowers in the house ... Lilac too, but I cut that for the house - it looks lovely in a vase and not much else going on colour wise at that time.
Aconites in a vase far more deadly, literally! than Snowdrops.
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All sorts of superstitions about cut flowers in the house ... Lilac too, but I cut that for the house - it looks lovely in a vase and not much else going on colour wise at that time.
Aconites in a vase far more deadly, literally! than Snowdrops.
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
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Ive never seen snowdrops in pots only bulbs , i will have to split mine never done that as they have been a bit puny except this year .
chrissie b
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Ive never seen snowdrops in pots only bulbs
To buy? Just for info: Snowdrops hate to dry out, so buying a bag of Snowdrops bulbs in a bag hanging on a rack in the garden centre is almost bound to fail, sadly.
I have seen pots for sale, but the price is ridiculous (compared to buying bulbs, its probably not outrageous for a 1L pot of "something")
Best is to buy them "in the green" which is about now. They will come with bulb, leaf and roots [but, as it were, "bare root"] and need to be planting promptly. For Fancy Ones, costing £plenty!, they usually come in-flower so that the buyer is reassured that they are getting what they ordered. That's fine, even as a lose bulb, given that Snowdrops are happy to be divided and planted at that time. Can't think of many other plants that would be happy with root disturbance and being shipped bare-root whilst in flower :)
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We've not split the ones under the apple tree in the last few years and they look like they need it, thanks for the reminder, I will do that when OH isn't looking and take spares down to the plot!
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I bought mine as bulbs , the first yearcwas poor but they are lovley now and the leaves are realy glossy , ive just split mine and they look like healthy bulbs .
chrissie b