Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
Bulbs => Galanthus => Topic started by: David Nicholson on March 03, 2008, 12:19:25 PM
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I wonder if the Galanthophiles could give me a bit of advice please? In September 2006 Sue Gill was good enough to send me three bulbs of Galanthus Hippolyta which I grew in the greenhouse. There was plenty of leaf and a couple of flower stems but they didn't open, so this year I tried them in my bulb bed, with exacly the same result, see picture below.
Last year Ann Wright sent me a couple of bulbs of G. Lady Elphinstone and these too were planted in my bulb bed. I got leaves and a couple of very short flower stems but again they didn't open-picture below.
The bulb bed is orientated roughly North/South in a shaded situation. The soil is my normal garden soil with lots of added sand and grit together with some mushroom compost in the lower levels of it, and a good sprinkle of bone meal. A patch of G. nivalis in another part of the garden flowers every year, but doesn't multiply much.
What am I doing wrong?
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David, by the looks of them they're just a bit too small to flower properly yet. They most likely just need to settle in and build up their bulbs to full flowering size. Most snowdrops resent being moved around, and will often take a couple of years to get settled back in, especially if they were disturbed while in leaf and root. They look healthy enough, so I'd just give them some liquid feed through this Spring (full-strength Tomorite tomato fertiliser, Phostrogen, or some other high-potash liquid feed is ideal) as often as the bottle or packet recommends.
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Lady Elphinstine looks like it's flower has been eaten off. Like Martin says they are best moved dormant
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Hi David
definately looks like there may have been a mouse munching at the Lady E.
regards
John
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I have mice but they never touch daffs or snowdrops.
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More likely slugs.
Margaret Owen told me she has a problem with voles eating the emerging flower heads of Hellebores
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it's the little black slugs that are a problem in my garden - but a friend swears it is the mice that munch the snowdrop flower buds in her garden.
regards
John
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Thanks guys. It looks as though I need to feed and wait to see what happens next year.
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Mice??
I believed Amaryllidaceae were safe for mice and other fourlegged predators.
I have never observed any damage of that kind to any Galanthus, Leucojum or Narcissus and I have them in the open ground.
Göte
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Mice??
I believed Amaryllidaceae were safe for mice and other fourlegged predators.
I have never observed any damage of that kind to any Galanthus, Leucojum or Narcissus and I have them in the open ground.
Göte
But Göte, do the mice know this? And with the transfer of some genera to Alliaceae, perhaps this means the mice knew all along that some plants were on their menu !!??
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And with the transfer of some genera to Alliaceae, perhaps this means the mice knew all along that some plants were on their menu !!??
Exactly what I thought! ;D ;D
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My mice know and I assume that they are aware that many Amaryllidaceae have silica needles in the tissues.
They do love Corydalis and Crocus which do not have this deterrent.
Are Galanthus now Alliaceae????
Göte
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A friend saw a grey squirrel eating her Galanthus bulbs
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A friend saw a grey squirrel eating her Galanthus bulbs
I'll bet it had a sore mouth afterwards! Those silica needle-crystals can make finger-tips tingle and sting when cleaning up snowdrop bulbs. Rodents might try eating them once or twice but I imagine they'd soon lose the taste for them.
In my garden, slugs generally leave snowdrops alone too, except for the flowers, which the little black slugs go for. I wonder if the flower segments have lower levels of silica crystals? Some snowdrop flowers have very 'glistening' flowers which look like they have a lot of crystals in the segments, but others are less so and may then be more edible to the slugs. Having said that, I had just one clump of reginae-olgae this year attacked by a swarm (??Maggi please insert correct collective noun) of tiny pale brown slugs which seemed intent on stripping the leaves - that's never happened before.
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Another thing - when the little slugs go for snowdrop flowers, I find they usually strip the flower segments and the anthers but leave the style alone. What's that all about? I'm not complaining, as it means such attacked flowers can still be pollinated (the slugs don't usually eat the ovary either) but why not the style??
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I find the slugs eat the developing seeds in ovaries of snowdrops in my garden, generally don't touch the flowers.
Grey Sqiurrels are bushy-tailed rats and, like rats, will eat just about anything. Chilli powder on the bird table puts them off as they can taste it but birds can't, so maybe on the bulbs??? :-\.
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Martin,
There is the same phenomenon with petals of daffodils (and other species). It seems
parts of the flowers don't contain the same poisonous or repellant ingredients as leaves, flower stalks and bulbs.
Maybe there is something like a barrier between sepals and petals.
When I did my job in plantprotection, we noticed, that a plant which was treated with a systemic insecticide for instance was not protected in all its parts.
In Hibiscus aphids where unharmed when sitting on flowers.
Gerd
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I find the slugs eat the developing seeds in ovaries of snowdrops in my garden, generally don't touch the flowers.
Yes, I find big slugs and snails will eat into the snowdrop seed pods to get the seeds once they've swollen and the seeds are well-formed, but they tend not to eat the ovaries prior to fertilisation and seed development - it's like they know when there's something nutritious in the pods and when there isn't. Wierd that your slugs don't touch the flowers! We must have different species.
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That's very interesting, Gerd.
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My mice know and I assume that they are aware that many Amaryllidaceae have silica needles in the tissues.
They do love Corydalis and Crocus which do not have this deterrent.
Are Galanthus now Alliaceae?Göte
Göte, see this thread: http://www.srgc.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=1397.0
and in particular this note from Diane Clement:
Re: What Ipheion?
« Reply #12 on: February 22, 2008, 11:42:35 AM »
"Ipheion.....
The taxonomists have called it all sorts and now thrown out Iphieon as a genus completely. Some of it is now Tristagma, so Ipheion uniflorum is now Tristagma uniflorum. Ipheion dialystemon (we discussed on another thread) is now Nothoscordum dialystemon. There has been quite a considerable revision of the family Alliaceae in general. Interestingly, (all? some?) genera previously in Amaryllidaceae are now in Alliaceae.
So Narcissus and Galanthus are now onions.
And little blue jobs Scilla, Hyacinthus etc are in Asparagaceae.
This and other interesting moves can be found at Kew monocot checklist
http://apps.kew.org/wcsp/ "
::) :o :-X
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"So Narcissus and Galanthus are now onions.
This and other interesting moves can be found at Kew monocot checklist
http://apps.kew.org/wcsp/ "
That distant repetitive thudding noise you can hear is me slowly banging my head on my desk-top.
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Asparagaceae!! :-\
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Asparagaceae!! :-\
I suppose that lunch was blanched Bohemia White?
johnw