Stagonospora infection - collected threads

[Rob]

Here is a pic of a little elwesii. I put it on the kitchen windowsill to get it to open, as the weather has been poor all day.

[Brian Ellis]

Lovely pictures John and Tony, it has been raining all day here.  We went to a talk given by Richard Hobbs this afternoon and I asked about the micropropagation.  He assured me that it was because of the microrhiza not surviving in the sterile agar and that the micropropagation in Ireland was most likely micro-twinscaling.  I don't pretend to understand the botany, but I think this might clear up the point I was making for Alan_b.

One thing Wim is that twinscaling is not as successful on some bulbs as it is on others and therefore one does have to be patient with some of them.  Again if you try to get a lot of new bulbs by twinscaling into very small pieces they will take longer to get up to flowering size.

I hope it's better gardening weather tomorrow so I can get out and look at the snowdrops!

[mark smyth]

I've just found a photo of one of the pots of Wendy but I cant find my photos of the walk in cabinets and all the pots

[Alan_b]

...........when they have 2 original bulbs for example , and it doubles each year , after 10 years you can have 2000 bulbs.............

I find the mathematics of bulb growth interesting.  In "Snowdrops" by Bishop et al they quote a paper by Rees that suggests that bulb growth follows a Fibonacci series (1-1-2-3-5-8-13-21-34-55-89-144 ...).  If this were true then two mature bulbs would give you 288 bulbs after 10 years.  I went to the library and read Rees' original paper but as far as I could tell this notion of a Fibonacci series was based on conjecture rather than experimental observation.

Rees' model, in effect, suggests that a mature bulb forms an offset each year but this offset takes another year to grow to maturity.  So if you start with an offset (immature bulb) in year 1, in year two you have 1 mature bulb, in year three you have a mature bulb and an offset (so 2 bulbs), in year four last year's mature bulb forms another offset and last years offset grows to maturity (3 bulbs), the following year three mature bulbs and two offsets (5), then 8 etc etc.

Wim is also postulating that each bulb forms an offset each year but there is no maturation time required.  Thus the number of bulbs doubles each year.  So if you started with one bulb in year one you would have 8 bulbs by year 4.  On the other hand if you had one bulb and twin-scaled it to form 10 tiny bulbs in year 2 which then take 2 more years to reach maturity then you would have 10 mature bulbs in year 4.  So that would be 8 bulbs with minimal effort vs 10 bulbs with all the work and risk twin-scaling requires.  I may be misunderstanding Wim's numbers but my point is you do need to compare the yields from normal growth vs twin-scaling to be sure the latter is worthwhile.  

The maths can make a huge difference to the number of bulbs you have after 10 years!  I think Wim is being a bit optimistic but the most vigorous snowdrops could probably out-perform a Fibonacci sequence given optimum conditions.  Has anyone kept track of this by counting the growth of their own snowdrops?  

[vanhouttewim]

Hello Alan,

thank you ! i agree with your calculations,
but i think some plants will multiply much faster than others.
where i live Galanthus plicatus and elwesii increase fast , even the rare ones. some do x 4 and x5 in one year.
most of them make flowers too.
But they don't do it every year!
they would maybe more devide when i dig up the clumps every 2 years and plant them all apart.

in 2 years i allready have nice little clumps of gracilis and for example greenfields.
the hybrids are doing good too.
i have bad results for all the Galanthus nivalis as i have very dry soil .
i have lot of work to add compost .

how many you can make in 10 years depends on what plant you are talking about , the care you give them and the type of soils , humus and humidity.

[Martin Baxendale]

Some named snowdrop varieties barely increase at all by normal division. I find some, like Mighty Atom and John Gray, will often sit still and stay as single bulbs for a number of years before getting big enough to split. Maybe I don't feed as much as I should. But other snowdrops in the garden, which are equally under-fed increase much faster.

Generally speaking, there's a very wide range of bulking-up speeds between different snowdrops. In the wild, snowdrops are generally found as single bulbs, with just the occasional clump where an individual has the genetic makeup required to make it a splitter.

Also some just are more prone to disease, often through old age but also through being prone to virus.

With the slow-increasers, chipping is certainly an advantage as you can get a clump in 3 years, while with natural division you might wait 5-6-7 years or more for a good clump to develop from one bulb, if the bulb doesn't rot or get eaten by narcissus fly while building up enough to split.

[Maggi Young]

if I can find any snowdrops that aren't mud-splashed with all the rain

says Martin.....
I was most impressed with John's drops, they are whiter than white! Lovley drops and lovely photos, all of you.. just a delight to see... so, what have we got out in our garden in Aberdeen?..... I can tell you very simply, still just the one, very lonely snowie flower that has been doing its solitary thing for the last couple of weeks!  An un-named one, a gift from President Ian Where all the others are, I don't know, I can only imagine they have some premonition of ghastly weather to come and are keeping underground till they think its safe    This is the slowest beginning to a year that I can remember for a long time. Thank goodness you guys have got some flowers to interest us all.
John, do I remember that you recently got a new camera? Your shots are great, whatever. I have to admit that a snowie can be very photogenic  
Your G. 'John Gray' looks to be staying sturdy, John...everyone elses' seem to flop...

[Martin Baxendale]

Maggi, I suspect most of John's and Tony's are in pots kept under cover. Also, they weren't stupid enough to put chicken manure around all their snowdrops just before one of the wettest and splashiest winter periods on record, like wot I was! 

[Maggi Young]

they weren't stupid enough to put chicken manure around all their snowdrops just before one of the wettest and splashiest winter periods on record, like wot I was!   

Martin,  at least the cold wet weather keeps the ghastly smell of the hen-pen (chicken manure) down, doesn't it?

[Paddy Tobin]

Some days ago there were comments on G. 'John Gray' and its bad habit of lying down. At the time my clump of 'John Gray' was looking especially good, standing up very well, nice and clean and opening nicely. Yesterday afternoon it rained heavily and the very sheltered position Mary had given to 'John Gray' was good enough to save them. They are all sprawled about and the only saving grace is that I have them mulched with pebble which keeps them somewhat clean. Pride comes before a fall it seems.

Paddy

[Paddy Tobin]

Maggi,

My present garden project is the construction of a hen run for Mary. Luckily I have placed it well away from any precious snowdrops. I wonder if I could collect the pellets?

Paddy

[Martin Baxendale]

Paddy, chicken manure straight from the hen house might be a bit strong unless aged, perhaps in with some garden compost or leafmould. The stuff I'm using is the pelleted chicken manure that you get from garden centres in tubs and bags, compressed pellets that swell up to triple their size when wetted.

Unfortunately I was very generous with them, so some snowdrops almost disappeared under the swelling masses of chicken pooh. They don't mind, as it doesn't tend to burn the leaves, and will grow up through it, but the flowers after all the torrential rain look disgusting!

Maggi, are you ready for this? I'd sit down if I were you. Okay? Right - the pellets don't smell awful. They smell vaguely of chocolate! (at least to my nose).

[Martin Baxendale]

I meant to say, I think the pellets are not pure chicken manure, but mixed with some form of organic peat-like material, maybe composted straw? Anyway, when they swell, they're not like slimey chicken pooh but more like fluffy wet wheetabix. Maybe it's a composted mix of pooh and bedding (straw, sawdust etc).

And I've no idea why they smell a bit chocolatey, unless it's pooh from chocolate chicken.

[Maggi Young]

Paddy, I think you meant to say  "a run for Mary's chickens" but the arrangements made between man and wife are not mine to question, I suppose 

Martin, I cannot imagine what sort of wierd stuff they are selling you down in Gloucester but up here, pelleted chicken manure smells flippin' awful !

[mark smyth]

'The Whopper' stems here have been extending and extending. Today they were at 45 degrees and I'm sure any day they will hit the dirt. 'Cicely' is only just showing a flower between the leaves.