Fritillaria Falcata

[robg]

I did a post on this Frit on the 'old' forum seeking sowing advice.  The BD suggested autumn sowing but I did go ahead and plant last January - I suspect the BD was right as they have germinated now !

I'm going to leave them in the pot until next year, but would appreciated guidance on whether they should be given a weak feed at some point this year and what to do with them then.  Iain in his reply to my query a year ago mentions serpentine screes and having googled on that, I am at a bit of a loss as to what to pot them into; they clearly are not a Scottish garden inhabitant, but serpentine soil has some very distinctive characteristics and I wonder if the compost is going to need some of these.

Rob

[Ian Y]

Rob I often suspect that the bulbs that grow on serpentine do so because they manage to survive despite the heavy metals, not because they require them, but other plants cannot so there is little competition.
I find they grow in any well drained compost.
Do not rush into feeding them for a month or so but once the seedling leaf growth looks to have hardened up a dilute potasium rich feed should do them good.

[robg]

Thanks Ian - I take it that my comment about Scottish gardens is correct and that these should be regarded only as an alpine house resident?

Serpentine wouldn't have registered particularly if it hadn't been for a media article the other day about there being a hole in the earth's crust in the mid-atlantic which is plugged with serpentine rather than the normal crust material - apparantly this is causing some interest in 'earth crust' circles.  The geology/tectology of it was beyond me but much of the technical talk on the geology website I looked at today linked in nicely with the previous web article and helped to make it more understandable. 

Cheers

Rob

[Maggi Young]

Rob, Frit. falcata is a scarce plant and a small plant, it is therefore a target for every slug in Edinburgh:
we suggest you keep it in the alpinehouse. We keep ours under glass, there we can protect it from predators and see it in relative comfort.