Galanthus reginae-olgae

[Anthony Darby]

In the summer I received a bulb of Galanthus reginae-olgae 'Tilebarn Jamie' and planted it next to a trough in a south facing gravel border. Two flower buds have been sitting at soil level now for several weeks but refuse to elongate. Should I 'throw in the towel' and accept that this snowdrop won't grow outside in sunny D or should I give it some more cold autumn weather? 

[Martin Baxendale]

Anthony, I'd get the bulb up and check it out. Doesn't sound like it's happy. May have a nasty grub in it, not rooted properly, or maybe some sort of rot. Tilebarn Jamie isn't, I find, one of the strongest-growing forms of reginae-olgae, but it shouldn't sulk like that just cos it's in bonnie Scotland. If it isn't nice and firm and well-rooted, I'd get it into a pot of v. gritty compost and water with fungicide after checking for grub-holes that might indicate something inside.

[Anthony Darby]

Thanks Martin. Clearly you are one I can Bond with?

[mark smyth]

my TB Jamies are rubbish this year. Single flowers on small stems

[Brian Ellis]

Sorry about that Mark, but I read it with great relief as the one I bought earlier this year also just had one flower.  Would it be the weather?

[annew]

Mine are only just poking through in the alpine house.

[KentGardener]

Just found this post - TileBarn Jamie didn't have any flowers for us - but then again, something ate them all as soon as they broke the surface!  I am blaming mice I think... (or the squirels maybe?)

Only another 12 months to wait!

John

[mark smyth]

John I would blame either a bird or a slug. Pheasants have a bad reputation for pulling the head off snowdrops. The chances of a Pheasant are slim unles  you live near a shoot.

[Sandy Leven]

I have planted Galanthus reginae olgae as bulbs and in the green in sunny and shady places in my garden, just up the hill from Tony. Although plants in pots do OK those planted out do not thrive. Incidentally spring flowering galanthus are not brilliant outside here. I blamed eelworm or some other beasties. Slugs like the early flowers. The clay soil is cold and wet, despite 30 years of top dressing.

My Galanthus reginae olgae in pots increase slowly and I have some seedpods from this years flowers. Hopefully [big hope!] they will have crossed with G. peschmannii but I doubt it.

At present Galanthus reginae olgae 'Hyde Lodge' is in flower, One bulb had twin flowers and the other a single flower. The picture shows the twin flowered stem and one flower is bigger than the other but as the bigger flower aged, the smaller flower increased in size.
I like the texture of the petals.
If I were Tony. I would lift the bulb, pot it into good gritty compost and keep it in a frame until it bulked up. Then I would keep some bulbs in the pot and put others into a trough. I am not convinced that Galanthus reginae olgae is at all happy in wet cold Scottish soil.
I know it grows well for a friend who lives on the Fife coast. In sun it flowers well. In shade it increases well. His bulbs when tansplanted here did not flourish!

I think it would prefer woodland conditions in colder, wetter parts of the country

[annew]

Mark, please could you tell my pheasant that? I suppose it's a refugee, but I'm thinking of starting a shoot myself...

[KentGardener]

Hi All

I am in the middle of a large sprawling town so I think that discounts the pheasant idea.  Could be a slug, maybe - but it was a clump of about 30 bulbs and not a single flower survived more than 1/4 inch above the ground - it must have been a very hungry slug - or a gang of them.  The toads can't be doing their jobs properly.

The clump has now been split and spread around so that we don't lose a complete years flowers in one fell swoop again.

Sandy - your picture doesn't seem to have made it onto the forum - can you please try again so we can see the flowers (look in 'Additional Options' for adding images).

thanks

John

[mark smyth]

John are the bulbs OK? It could be Narcissus fly grubs hard at work at this time of year. Have you seen flowers or just no sign?

[KentGardener]

Hi Mark

I have dug up the clump to check the bulbs and also took the opertunity to split the clump up a bit - they were fine with no problems below ground.  It was just anything that had managed to get above ground that was munched.  It is depressing because the scapes are still there and have grown a bit - but with nothing on the top of any of them.

At least the bulbs are healthy and they should have extra energy for next years flowers!

thanks

John

[Martin Baxendale]

It's even more annoying when something eats all the emerging flower buds off a bunch of Gal. reginae-olgae seedlings when you've been waiting for 4 years to see the first flowers, which is what happened here this autumn!    And I'm hoping some of them will be successful hybrid crosses. But another year to wait now to find out!

Here, I usually find it's those little black slugs that are to blame, both in autumn and winter-spring, for getting the snowdrop flower buds. I found some the other morning munching through the very tips of snowdrops poking throughj even before the flower buds were showing. They were eating holes in the tops of the sheathing leaves, presumably to get inside and hollow out the flower bud even before emerging.

Slug pellets are the only answer I'm afraid.

[ian mcenery]

I wonder if some forms have more interesting flavours as all my shoots Peschmenii were eaten below ground level last year and not by slugs. Perhaps I will try some leaves on my salad. I have also had problems in some areas of the garden with damage to snowdrop shoots and the slug pellets were ineffective and untouched, but the bulbs continued to suffer damage. My feeling is that this was either mice of wood pigeons. So where damage occurs now I cover with a little netlon which seems to discourage whatever the pest is. One day I will catch the little perishers.