Yellow Snowdrops

[Blonde Ingrid]

One is starting to wonder why you must constantly keep going on about this.
As you have acquired hundreds of snowdrops, and this one displeases you so much,
just sell it on eBay or give it away and replace it with something that makes you happy.
Really life is too short.

An extraordinary post!

First I do not sell snowdrops, secondly if I did, I would not sell a snowdrop I know has stability issues that has not performed correctly for me!

One might also wonder why you are exercised about a snowdrop you do not grow and have no experience of.

[Bernadette]

Because I think this forum is changing and not in a good way, one by one people are dissapearing. Whatever you reply I WIlLL NOT RESPOND TO and no doubt you will as you always want the last word.  All I can say is this is not what gardening should be about.

[Maggi Young]

Dear Bernadette, I am distressed that you seem to consider that there is something wrong about trying to clarify  situations where  gardeners may be  misled  in some way. 

The ethos of this forum has always been - and will continue, I hope - to be one of  helping to spread information and  increase knowledge  with all.   

[johnralphcarpenter]

Who is king-radio, selling Mother Goose on Ebay?

[Maggi Young]

I don't know, Ralph.  I note that  he has  quote -"copied"  - photos for a few of those he is selling and  that raises warning signs for me about any seller.

[johnralphcarpenter]

Has all the hallmarks of a scam - "I'm just an amateur" etc.

[Janette]

He / She has been selling for severall years already, so may be genuine.

I have wanted Mother Goose for a long time but I am grateful to have read 1st hand experience of it’s performance and it is no longer on my must have list! If the sellers are not honest about it, then it is only via a forum that we can know how it really performs and make a purchase decision based on the facts.

[johnralphcarpenter]

All his feedback for the past twelve months has been as a buyer not a seller. Older feedback as a seller is not for snowdrops - mostly old coins.

[David Lowndes]

Sorry to come to this late. I think it should be said that the yellow version of MG is a spectacularly beautiful snowdrop, especially in a group. The green version is spectacularly ordinary. Perhaps this is why it evokes such strong feelings when it does not deliver.
Bernadette, you should definitely try it. I think I said in an earlier post that its variability is fascinating and we need to collate our experiences in order to come to a semblance of an objective view. At the moment I am disappointed but I will persevere because I am interested to discern any patterns in its behaviour. It certainly twin scales easily so there will soon be plenty of available material to work with.

[Janette]

All his feedback for the past twelve months has been as a buyer not a seller. Older feedback as a seller is not for snowdrops - mostly old coins.

He has a lot os positive feedback for snowdrops, more than a year ago, if you scroll past the pages of Roman coins!

[Shauney]

Who is king-radio, selling Mother Goose on Ebay?

He / She has been selling for severall years already, so may be genuine.

I've been watching joy cozens being sold  by queen_carrol1, and was going to write to them to ask why some of the pics have been lifted from Judy's snowdrops site but have not got around to doing that yet! Anyway after reading this about king_radio I went to have a look and was surprised to see that he/she also has this plant for sale. The text is the same as queen_carrol1 the pics are the same and they both come from Leicester! Hmmmm!

[johnralphcarpenter]

Caveat emptor!

[Mariette]

as an aside (and back to more reliable snowdrops), here is a recent picture of my own yellow with its still fresh green coloured leaves and ripening seed pods.  It varies a bit itself though and emerged less bright this year than last (when it emerged with golden shoots).  Grake's Gold also looked a similar colour this year from a photo I saw posted (I only have Grake's Yellow although I suspect i'ts somewhere between the two in colour terms).

The inner seems to change from a lightish green with yellow suffusion above to a more straight yellow colour with white above (as in the second and third photos);  I need more time to evaluate this though to see if it is a consistent feature or not. 

It was found in February 2016 and seems to grow well (much more vigorous than my Grake's Yellow for instance).

A very interesting find, Josh! I like  snowdrops  with green leaves and think this feature is especially desirable for yellow snowdrops. The contrast looks much healthier than the combination of flowers and leaves of ´Carolyn Elwes´, for instance.

[Mariette]

I now try to put everything in the garden and use a lot of oak leaf mould and I think
they are much happier and stronger.

That´s what I do, and I can´t complaint about my yellows. My soil is heavy clay, enriched with compost and leafmould.
Maybe oakleaves are especially helpful - I remember a report mentioning many yellow G. elwesii growing under oaktrees.

´Primrose Warburg´

[Josh Nelson]

Did you  get going with a paint brush, Josh, or  did  you have natural early pollinators?

Paint brush, Maggi (or, more accurately, entomological tweezers!). 

I found a flower of Golden Fleece on the floor near the cafe at the Myddleton House sale. It was a bit stepped on but more on the stalk end.  I first questioned whether it was GF as it was a very light lime-y green colour and I wondered whether there was a similar new one or Myddleton had their own version.  I concluded it was most likely GF as it can be quite lime coloured and it hadn't been a good year for plicate yellow colouring.

In order to try and check, I said to Joe that I thought GF had been on the floor by the cafe and he said one had fallen out of Janet Benjafield's hat (I didn't say it was by then safely tucked away in my bag!),  Suffice to say, it 'met' a number of my snowdrops, including my yellow.  i later found a very promising new virescent at the byzantinus site I know and used its pollen on my yellow as well. 

I did have bees working the snowdrops very vigorously on a couple of days a while later (not been a great year for them thus far!) but don't think this one was outside at the time.  Whatever has caused the pods to swell, I'll be watching any seedlings produced with interest!