Dunblane Early Bulb Show
17th February 2007
Report by Sandy Leven

Honoured to meet you!





SRGC President Ian Christie and SRGC Honorary President Bette Ivey

Once again we were lucky with the weather. On Thursday evening when Janis Ruksans and his wife Guna landed at Edinburgh Airport from Riga via Gatwick their plane had a very bumpy landing. Strong winds caused the plane to 'bounce' in the air during its descent. Janis says that for the whole trip the fasten seat belt sign was illuminated. Heavy rains battered them on their road journey to Perth. Still Friday dawned quiet and peaceful as did Saturday with its early morning frost and bright sunshine. The 17th Feb was one of the best days of the year. Inside the show hall the bright morning was reflected in the masses of flowers on he tables.



Since this spring we are celebrating Scotland's Snowdrop Festival we gave pride of place in the hall to Galanthus. Over 50 distinct species, varieties and forms were on display - a veritable snowdrop storm!



The biggest was a pan of a magnificent form of Galanthus caucasicus [now properly called Galanthus elwesii monostictus] with petals 5cm long by 3cm wide! The tiniest snowdrop was a delicate 'miniature' with petals barely 1cm long.



For galanthophiles there was the chance to see and compare the markings on all these cultivars. It is easy to appreciate how galanthophilia is acquired during the short days of late wintertime. Were they to flower in mid summer when they had to compete with all the brightly coloured flowers for our attention, I doubt whether snowdrops would have gained their enormous popularity. However when the ground is bare they give unparallel pleasure to those with keen eyes. I agree that many varieties differ little from some others but some do better than others under different conditions. Big green markings, little dots, double flowers, yellow bits and deformed bits we had them all.

For those who think a snowdrop is a snowdrop we had plenty of interest. To balance the white out by the window we had blushes of pink and rashes of red and purple from the magnificent Cyclamen at the other end.

Most were Cyclamen coum. As well as differing flowers the coums have very interesting leaf forms.


Cyclamen coum

Had there been a Forrest medal up for grabs then this fine cyclamen coum from David Boyd would have been in contention.

IMG_0832. EKB coum.jpg
Cyclamen coum

This fine pan of Cyclamen alpinum was shown by Cyclamen supreme David Boyd wh always brings a lot of colour to the shows.


Cyclamen alpinum

A fine range of crocus sparkled in a whole spectrum of colours. The crocuses love a warm hall. The lift their faces upwards and open their petals wide to flaunt their beauty.


Jean Wyllie's crocuses. C. tommasinianus 'Lyn's Pink' is on the right.

Jean Wyllie exhibited a fine an of Crocus tommasinianus 'Lyn's Pink' found by Lyn Bezzant in her former garden in Bearsden.


Carole with Jean's Crocus tommasinianus 'Lyn's Pink'

Here are some more crocuses


Crocus cvyicii


Crocus corsicus


Crocus flavus flavus


Crocus malayi


Crocus sieberi tricolor


Crocus dalmaticus, one of my favourites.

Acidic and butter yellows as well as delicate cream tones draw you to the small narcissi. These delicate miniatures look too frail to be true mountain plants able to survive spring storms. They are deceptive but in my experience many of them appreciate a bit of cosseting. A contrasting pair were the diminutive Narcissus hadriaticus and a big N. romieuxii form


Narcissus hadriaticus


Narcissus romieuxii form

Jean Wyllie's Narcissus 'Betty May' was admired by the RHS Joint Rock plant committee who recommended that it be awarded an Award of Merit. Sorry Jean I don't have a picture!

A sprinkling of other bulbs and plants kept our interest at a peak.

And….. If you aren't a bulb you have to be beautiful!


Adonis amurense


Erica canaliculata,

a slightly tender [?] heather from South Africa. The colour is apparently deeper if the plant is grown outdoors. This is a beautiful plant for a pan and this is the first time I have seen it at our show.


Fred Hunt with his pan of Corydalis popovii. Fred was one of the first people to grow and show this fabulous Corydalis. The spell checked wanted to rename it popover!


Corydalis shanginii ainiae was found and introduced by Janis Ruksans


Sternbergia candida was discovered in the 60s or 70s an has already been over-collected in its native Turkey. It grows under thousand year old cedar of Lebanon trees in the Taurus mountains. Locally it is called 'gravel daffodil'. It is the only white Sternbergia.


It's always exciting to grow something new. Fred Hunt showed he was still at the cutting [growing?] edge with his bulb [yes, just one!] of an Algerian woodlander called Scilla aristides. That's all the information he had other than it was collected by Schneider.



Another Scilla. This time the crystal white Scilla mischtshenkoana.




CONSUMERISM
Of course the Dunblane Early Bulb Display is about more than just a superb show of bulbs. There is the chance to buy lots of new plants and bulbs for the coming season. All the plant stands including the SRGC stand were very busy. These pictures illustrate the consumerism which is rie in our club - thank goodness!




The members of the RHS Joint Rock Garden Plant Committee had a short walk to their meeting. The sight of apparently normal grown men carefully carrying pots of plants through the streets of Dunblane at lunchtime did not go unnoticed. Still they are all wearing very sensible shoes!



EDUCATION
Two splendid hours are spent listening to the lectures which are a major part of the proceedings. This year our lectures were from Latvian Geophyte Maestro, Janni Rucksans. He talked first about Crocus and corydalis and later about bulbs of Central Asia. Both talks were packed out with members keenly interested in the subjects. Janis showed lots of rarities and assuaged our need to get some of these into our own collections by bringing his own catalogues in which many are listed.



This year our show was part of VisitScotland's Snowdrop Festival, one of 60 places in the country where people can see snowdrops. Part of the promotion was to provide some extra interest for children, giving them the challenge of 'Find Grumpy', the white dwarf.




So its goodbye from Grumpy and goodbye from Grumpy2.

Thank you to everyone from the Stirling group and beyond [especially the conscripts from Northumberland] who prepared the show hall, who brought plants for the show, who baked cakes and filled rolls, made soup, tea and coffee, tidied tables, washed dishes, who brought contributions for the plant sale, who worked on the plant stall, who tidied up afterwards and to all who contributed to the success of the day.

^ back to the top ^