Tag Archives: galanthus elwesii

Introducing the snowdrop page.

I have a weakness for late season clearance sales on bulbs, so it’s no surprise that I again ordered (among other things) a few more snowdrops for forcing indoors.  The snowdrops I chose are galanthus elwesii and for me they seem to be the best snowdrop sort to buy as a dry bulb (as opposed to other sorts which tend to arrive dried out too much and can be difficult to revive).  They were potted up in early December, kept in a cool (40s-50s) location for a few weeks, and are now sprouting and blooming…. in spite of the January mouse attacks which reduced their numbers by half.

snowdrops forced under lights

An odd mix of cyclamen, snowdrops, houseplants, and overwintering tropicals.

I think the blooming of the first forced snowdrop is as good an opportunity as any to introduce you to the snowdrop page which I put together this winter.  It’s mostly just a listing of cool snowdrop sites and links which I’ve stumbled across on the web while dreaming away winter and praying for spring, but I’m hoping it will be of interest to others.  That’s the positive side to it.  The negative is that it might be a sign my snowdrop-curiosity is drifting into obsession.  Please don’t judge me 🙂

To get to the snowdrop page, click the tab on top, or find it under the menu… or just click <here> . Hope you enjoy it!

Hope for spring

Last Sunday was a big day.  The first snowdrop managed to pop up and drop the first pure white bloom of the 2014 season.  Since then the not-so-pure snow has been on the retreat and temperatures have been almost seasonable!  One night temperatures didn’t even drop below freezing, and if you ignore the 9F night (-13C) you could almost imagine spring is close.

I don’t know how they do it, but somehow even from the frozen earth, under a layer of snow and ice, the snowdrops (galanthus elwesii) are growing.  I can’t imagine I missed this one in January during the last thaw.  It must have continued to grow as melting snow trickled down through the ice and then voila!  Spring 🙂snowdrop emerging from snowOther old friends are reappearing from beneath the filthy snow remnants.  Cyclamen hederifolium doesn’t look half bad after having spent the winter under a driveway snow pile.cyclamen hederifolium under snowA few feet away cyclamen coum is a different story.  The melting snow is leaving me with a mat of sloppy, rotting foliage.  Just for the record, you won’t get these pretty pictures on just any blog.  We’re here for the good, the bad…. and the ugly.
hardy cyclamen look dead
first cyclamen coum bloomBut spring is a fountain of hope, and even here I was able to find the first bloom coming up!  I think they’ll be ok but it’s a different look without the backdrop of healthy foliage (and I hope the tubers are able to prep for next year without their leaves)

Here’s a standard pussy willow shot.  Another one of my favorite plants.  Not much to look at most of the year, but I’d never be without it 🙂pussywillow budsThe “solid” winter of 2013/14 has tied up the Northeast in longer than average snowcover, and as a result even the snowdrops are running late.  2014 hitch lyman open daysI got this postcard from Hitch Lyman of The Temple Garden Nursery in upstate NY, and what a relief that I won’t be stressing over the long range weather report.  By April there should be something!  and even if some freak warm spell comes along there are enough other bulbs and hellebores to fill a garden visit.  But change your calendars, the new Garden Conservancy open date is April 5 from 11 to 3.

Here’s how my first snowdrop (an anonymous galanthus elwesii given to me by a friend) looks….. and notice another dead cyclamen coum leaf right at it’s base.  This spring they all look this way 😦 galanthus elwesiiI’m going to go on about snowdrops now, so tune out if you’ve already had your fill.  This week I’m struggling through my attempts to get better pictures.  So far I’ve learned nothing, but out of the countless blurry and overexposed pictures I’ve taken, the law of averages has let me bumble into one or two acceptable shots.  Here’s my nicest clump of galanthus nivalis (or most likely a hybrid thereof) which was rescued from the edge of a bulldozer rut during a local dairy farm’s gentrification.  It’s the last survivor of what used to be swaths of snowdrops…. spring snowdrops And here are three new treasures 🙂 -all variations on white, and all making me happier than a sparrow in spring (I’m assuming they’re happy, I finally hear them singing in the mornings). The first is galanthus “Gerard Parker”.
galanthus Gerard ParkerThe next, with much smaller blooms and a more average snowdrop look, is galanthus “Chedworth”.galanthus Chedworthand finally (with a drumroll implied) is galanthus “Primrose Warburg”.  It’s a little thing, but special enough to make me happy I was able to finally get a non-blurry portrait.
galanthus primrose warburgYesterday I noticed the first winter aconite is out.  They’re still tiny and lack confidence, but I’m hoping spring is really on its way (although it’s snowing as I write this and a storm is predicted for tonight).  Happy Sunday!

Do I detect a thaw?

Longer days and stronger sunshine doesn’t necessarily mean it’s springtime.  Warmer weather and a lack of snowstorms means spring to me, and since we’re 0-2 on that front, this weekend’s forecast of almost normal weather gives me some hope that the snow may eventually melt.  My fingers are crossed that the receding snow will reveal healthy snowdrop sprouts, and in the front bed along the foundation this might be true.  This bunch has come along since the last time it was uncovered (Jan 13th), but it’s still far behind last year’s bloom date of Jan 31st.  Still it amazes me that even under feet of snow and temperatures down to 0F (-18C) they continue to grow, disregarding the frozen soil and surrounding ice.snowdrops and snow

Indoors is a different story.  The forced snowdrops are at their peak, and I regret giving them the cold shoulder in my last post.forced galanthus

There’s plenty of variation in bloom shape, plant height, and color and pattern of the green markings inside.  I’m quite pleased all over again and it makes me even more excited the ones outside might someday open!forced galanthus elwesii

A better gardener would keep track of their favorites, and carefully plant them out for observation…. but I’m just fine with big patches of anonymous white.  If there are a few real special ones I can separate them out, but we’ll see what happens once they have a chance to grow outside in the real garden.  The pale drops are nice, but the dark green markings such as this one also look interesting once open. snowdrops forced indoors

This one has such a stumpy, stout stem (but small bloom) that it really contrasts with the daintier one to the lower right of this photo.strong stem on galanthus

Having potted up all 200 of my bulbs for growing indoors, there are pots all over.  I might have gone a bit overboard since usually the windowsills are reserved for post-bloom hangout until things warm up enough to go outside.snowdrops on windowsill

I’ve been pollinating away, so hopefully there will be a few snowdrop seeds to start this summer.  My fingers are crossed since it looks like the sprouts I had coming along with so much promise in January all died during the last couple arctic blasts.

There’s a different kind of hope though.  Birds are singing in the sunshine in a way not heard since last spring, and this little guy was spotted rooting around under the feeder.  He’s not a mouse or vole, but a little half-blind shrew.  I’ve never seen one out (alive) but this guy let me take his close-up from about 12 inches away while he burrowed around in the seed hulls looking for bugs and whatnot.  He’s an interesting guy, one of only a few poisonous mammals (their saliva is toxic enough to kill a similar sized animal), and their hyperactive lifestyle has them eating nearly their entire weight in food each day.  They’re also a little stinky, which we discovered last fall when an opening in the foundation let a couple into the basement. shrew at feeder

Stay out by the feeder is all I have to say… that and have a great weekend!

Still hiding indoors

We’re into another warm spell, with temperatures predicted to peak at a balmy 50F (10C) this afternoon.  I would pull out the shorts and T shirts, but the weather forecast also has a low of 5F (-15C) listed for Wednesday, so maybe I’ll wait another week.  For now the indoor garden will have to do while we wait for the snow to melt.  Cyclamen coum are at their peak.hardy cyclamen coum indoors under lightsSure they would be hardy outdoors under the snow, but to see them blooming now is twice as nice, even though they have suffered more than ever this winter under my neglectful care.  Most are unnamed mixed seed, but the darker, smaller bloom is from the Meaden’s Crimson seed strain.meadens crimson cyclamen coumI have some whites outdoors, but only this one under lights.  It’s got nice foliage, a decent sized flower, and a nice blackberry smudge on the nose.  Also, according to the original listing this seed comes from a wild collected plant of cyclamen coum ssp. causasium, which to me means its mom comes straight from the wilds at the edge of the Black Sea near Turkey and Western Russia (and may also be slightly less hardy than other c. coum).  A cool pedigree as far as I’m concerned, but based on the mixed variety of colors and forms that came from this seed batch I’m guessing dad was a local.white cyclamen coum with blackberry centerThis one is still my favorite.  No fancy reason, just like the color.pink hardy cyclamen coumThe snowdrops (galanthus elwesii) which I potted up in December from a late Van Engelen order are doing fine, but just not as well as last years order.  There’s just not as much variety in bloom shapes and markings this year, and to me this says it might be time to move on from my bulk snowdrop purchasing days.  I’m sure I’ll still pick a couple up here and there, but no more bags of hundreds.  Just the other day a friend suggested I try Brent and Becky’s since they usually supply a higher quality and larger bulb…. (so maybe I’ll still have to try one more year of bulk orders) forced snowdropsEventually I hope to bring in a pot or two of my own garden’s clumps and force them indoors, but for now my clumps of just one bulb aren’t ready for that.  So until then I’ll have to take what I can get.galanthus and primulaYou might recognize the pinkish primula vulgaris ssp. sibthorpii from my Far Reaches Farm order in January.  It’s lookin’ good!  I can’t really take any credit for this since all I did was keep it warm and under lights, but it’s a nice treat here amongst the permafrost.  Rumor has it that sibthorpii should have a white ring around the yellow center star or else it’s a mixed hybrid, but since mine has been grown under artificial lighting, it may not yet be showing it’s true colors. primula vulgaris sibthorpiiTo save on indoor light space I placed another dormant primrose in a cold spot near the door to keep it asleep…. then the polar vortex and little vortices came through and before I knew it the poor thing was a block of ice.  After a slow thaw I have it under the light too, and other than a few freezer burned rosettes of new growth, I believe it will be fine.frozen perennial primroseAnother objet d’hope  is this group of overwintered geraniums I potted up last week.  I had a free afternoon and the strangely bright sunshine made me antsy to get something growing, so after another 25 pots of seeds were sown and placed outside to get a taste of winter, I took pity on the stray geranium cuttings sitting in the dark garage, repotted them and set up the second shoplight.overwintered geraniumsI had been of the opinion that my tropicals under a shoplight experiment was a waste of lighting, but last year’s hanging pots of geraniums look much better for having been under the light.  I suspect this will be the year of the geranium (pelargonium) since I now have room for nothing else (other than this sad looking cane begonia- which believe it or not will recover very quickly from this wintertime abuse).overwintered geraniumsThe succulents are much less bother.  Dim lighting, a cup of water in January, and they look as good today as when I brought them in.  As long as they only get enough water to hold off death, they’ll be fine until May.overwintered aloe

May sounds good right now, but I’ll be happy enough when March gets here.  It’s scheduled to come in like a lion, but hopefully by the end we’ll see some signs of life outside.  Onion seeds were planted last week so even if the ice outside says winter, the calendar will soon start to argue that…. I hope.

January Thaw

This is a post only a gardener could love…. and even at that it would need to be a gardener stuck in the cold and gray of a Northern January.  Only a cabin fever gardener would care about the first tiny green sprout of a snowdrop coming up among the freezer-burnt hellebore foliage.first snowdrop sprouts

Just a few days after temperatures dropped to -6F (-21C), the warmth has returned, the ground is thawing and I’m back outside poking for the first signs of spring.  The snowdrops (galanthus elwesii) seemed way too early but then after checking last year’s notes I saw the first was open January 31st last year, and I suppose we’re right on schedule.  Using this as a clue I checked the seed pots and saw minute sprouts there.  Yay!  These little babies might have to come in under the lights, a pot like this is something I might have to check every day!  **btw there are two tiny sprouts, just in case you can’t see them 🙂galanthus elwesii seedlings

Elsewhere in the garden some of the snowdrops (also galanthus elwesii) forced under lights last year are also ready for the new season.  I keep throwing more mulch on them to slow them down, but they insist on coming up and facing the frigid ice and blowing snow unprotected.galanthus elwessi sproutsI wish I cold post a couple witch hazel blooms, but mine is refusing to bloom this year.  It does that, going on and off depending on its mood.  So in a desperate bid for anything interesting, here are a few colchicum sprouts already showing.  Colchicum are another plant that insists on worrying me with a too-early showing.colchicum sprouts in the winterOne plant that did not appear to enjoy the polar vortex is this cyclamen coum.  The warm front that preceded the artic blast melted off all our snow cover and these little guys were forced to endure the straight on winds without any windbreaks or mulch cover.  I’m hoping the dark shriveled green of the leaves is not a sign of death…..frozen cyclamen coum foliageTo leave off on a good note this hellebore “HGC Silvermoon” is only showing the typical winter foliage damage.  It’s in a full sun position but was engulfed by a neighboring catmint plant during the summer.  The plant doesn’t seem to care and I’m looking forward to a nice show soon (now that I can see it again!) hellebore HGC silvermoonSo that’s it from here.  Not much, but it’s always nice to be able to get out there for a look around during the daylight hours.  It gives me time to contemplate failed projects such as the leaking pond shell, the hole of which is holding more water than when the pond liner was in there.  In my head I will fix it and end up happy….. right now it just annoys me whenever I pass.pond liner failBut it’s nice to be outside doing something other than shoveling snow.  There’s still a month at least before any thoughts of spring become legitimate, so I need to take it easy.  Another good cold snap would do well to cool this spring fever off, but I’m worried about what more indoor computer time would do.  Right now the budget is blown for spring and it has a lot to do with that easy click that brings plant goodies right to your door….. there’s still a long way to go, and I hope you’re doing better than I’ve been!