The Giant Snowdrop

Here's a size comparison of several snowdrops blooming now.

The common snowdrop, Galanthus nivalis, is not in bloom yet, so a direct, side-by-side  comparison in size between it and these very robust sorts cannot be shown. So I've done the best I can with what's available: I've included a budded scape of Galanthus nivalis and have used a stem of Galanthus 'S. Arnott' for comparison. 'S. Arnott' itself is a significant jump in size over the common snowdrop, and I hope this helps to give an idea of the size of these big ones.

The remaining ones are all forms of Galanthus elwesii in the broad sense, and it's not hard to see why a half-century ago Galanthus elwesii was marketed as The Giant Snowdrop. There was in fact a company which called itself The Giant Snowdrop Company back then. The Giant Snowdrop Company is long gone, but its spirit (and possibly some of its plants) has been revived here:

http://www.snowdrop.org.uk/

Now back to the plants shown above. From left to right they are 'S. Arnott', then four progressively larger forms of Galanthus elwesii and finally on the right the budded scape of the common snowdrop, Galanthus nivalis.

The image which follows was added on February 7, 2012, and shows the contrast in size between the small common snowdrop, Galanthus nivalis, and one of my big ones.

Christmas Day in the garden

It's been a full month since the last post: what have I been up to? I've been up to planting; the community garden plots are now stuffed with roses, tree peonies, lilies, other bulbs both ornamental (tulips, bulbous irises, alliums, musk hyacinths et al.) and comestible (garlic, shallots, multiplier onions and others). Thirty-nine roses (wichurana hybrids, large-flowered climbers, polyanthas, some early hybrid teas and old shrub types among othres)  were planted last week (or was it the week before?). Most of the planting is now done, and I'm beginning to relax a bit and look forward to next year's garden. We've had two months of perfect planting weather, and the opportunities presented by the weather have kept me energized and sometimes even exhilarated: I can hardly believe what I've accomplished in the last two months.

Week after week of relatively mild weather has had an effect on the home garden and other local gardens, too. This year may well have been the best year ever for fall blooming camellias, and some precocious Camellia japonica sorts are also reported as blooming now. Those who keep lists of plants blooming on Christmas Day or New Year's Day will probably have long and varied lists this year.

My Christmas Day list from the home garden is short but sweet this year: snowdrops (Galanthus elwesii sorts), winter sweet, winter jasmine, winter honeysuckle, Camellia sasanqua and Elaeagnus pungens. Iris unguicularis was in bloom late last week, but the one flower had started to shrivel by today. Dandelions are blooming here and there. Helleborus foetidus (here) and H. niger (elsewhere) are blooming. Some garden hellebores are in advanced bud. I could not find any witch hazel flowers. In one of the cold frames Narcissus tazetta is blooming. Knock Out roses are still to be seen blooming here and there.

This morning I saw (and heard - what a pleasure to hear bird song on this date!)   a flock of birds (goldfinches?) working over the buds of the red maples.

In terms of what I've accomplished in the garden, I'm better prepared for the arrival of real winter this year than in any recent previous year; but emotionally I'm not prepared at all, and it's going to sting when it happens.

That's winter sweet, Chimonanthus praecox 'Luteus' in the image above.

Snowdrops

I'm not with the fashionable crowd when it comes to snowdrops. The cultivars I grow are all old ones, most dating to the first half of the last century. But I think I chose wisely when I imported these decades ago: there are early ones, late ones, tall ones, short ones, singles, doubles, narrow leafed, wide leafed - really much which the genus Galanthus has to offer.

The ones shown here are, bottom to top: 'Sam Arnott' (the eponymous Mr. Arnott lived to be 100 years old!); 'Lady Beatrix Stanley' (Lady Beatrix was a contemporary of E.A. Bowles); 'Augustus' which explains the A in E. A. Bowles;  'James Backhouse', one of two cultivars distributed as 'Atkinsii'; a small, narrow form of Galanthus nivalis.

Snowdrops at last

In a mild winter, there is the possibility of having snowdrops of one sort or another off and on throughout the winter. That's been true this year, too, although for much of the last month and a half the snowdrops have been buried in the snow. The snow is gone now in the sunnier parts of the garden, and as soon as it melted the snowdrops you see above opened as soon as the temperature rose. When I last saw them before the snow, they were not so well developed: evidently, they continue to develop under the snow cover.
Thanks to that snow cover, the season for snowdrops this year will probably be much condensed. The snowdrops which typically bloom in mid winter are blooming now with the ones which typically bloom in late winter. If there are any insects about, this might make for some interesting hybrids.
There are at least five named snowdrop cultivars in the image above. They have been there for years, and it's about time they were divided. I keep postponing the division because snowdrops in dense clumps are very attractive to me.

The spirit of William Morris

It was cold last night; the temperature at 7:30 this morning was about 25 º F.

These cold nights bring with them a new responsibility for me: I have to remember to close the cold frames each afternoon. I do this when the sun begins to go down, ideally as soon as the sun no longer directly strikes the cold frames. Cold frames are like a dog: they don’t require much attention, but they do require your attention at least twice a day. And like dogs they are well worth it.

No, the cold frames are not bursting with bloom right now, but they are full of interest. It’s a real pleasure to go out on a cold morning and peer through the glass light and see signs of life. The cold frames here have a primary purpose of housing a wide collection of marginally hardy bulby odds and ends. But each year I slip in various things which provide a nice contrast to the largely grassy foliage of the bulbs. Certain woody plants for instance provide a good change of pace. This year the rooted cutting of Daphne odora already shows flower color. A hardy gardenia, a new Ruscus, several asarums, some Selaginella, rosemary and Cistus psilosepalus all provide foliage interest and, in the case of the flowering plants, the promise of flowers and fragrance eventually.

The cold frame also provides an answer to the question of what to do with the florist’s cyclamen. The house is too warm and the garden is too cold. It turns out that the cold frame is just right: the glass light of the cold frame bears a flourish of frost flowers on cold mornings, but under the glass the bright red flowers of the florist’s cyclamen presents a burst of intense color.

A clump of snowdrops dug from the garden this week now blooms serenely under the glass. Another sort of snow drop is all over the news now: beginning tomorrow night, we are expected to have a 5-12” snow fall.

I opened this piece by writing that there was not much in bloom in the cold frames now. But one of the less protected cold frames offered an unexpected seasonal bouquet yesterday morning. I don't know what I did to deserve such a decorative acanthus-leaf pattern of frost flowers: it's as if the spirit of William Morris himself had worked over the under surface of the light. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Snowdrops of late autumn

The nature of our winters here on the east coast is such that any plant which tries to bloom during the winter is up against huge odds. The winter-flowering plant game is a dicey one here. Winter here almost always eventually takes a big bite out of the garden. And that seems to take a big bite out of local gardeners’ enthusiasm for winter flowering plants. Recent winters have been so mild that new gardeners will be in for a nasty surprise if old-style killer winters ever return.

Decades ago I tried two of the autumn-flowering snowdrops, Galanthus nivalis reginae-olgae (as it was called back then) and something called Galanthus nivalis corcyrensis. Neither persisted for long in the open garden. It was a real bother to acquire these from UK sources (does anyone else remember Mr. Mars of Haselmere?), and I made no rush to replace them.
Now, years later, I have a renewed interest in the snowdrops which flower at this time of year. I've selected two here which I call my Thanksgiving snowdrop and my Christmas snowdrop. They really do flower on or near the dates suggested by their names.

The Thanksgiving snowdrop is a one-spot Galanthus elwesii sort. It has a largish, slender flower but is otherwise not very prepossessing. Its only claim to my attention is its blooming season.
The Christmas snowdrop (it's just beginning to bloom now) is a typical two-spot Galanthus elwesii, with softly rounded ample flowers smaller than those of the Thanksgiving sort but more substantial.

Both of these are clumpers, and with luck there will eventually be a nice patch of each. Each of these grew for decades in the lawn; it was only when I realized that their season of bloom was not an anomaly that I marked them for cosseting. They now grow in the cold frames where their flowers are protected should the weather suddenly turn nasty.

These Galanthus elwesii forms seem to be indifferent to our local weather: plants in full bloom don't seem to suffer when the temperature plunges into the single digits F; mechanical damage is another matter. Flowers are on rare occasions destroyed by severe weather, but the plants themselves seem not to suffer at all. I suspect that in the long run these Galanthus elwesii variants will prove to be much better autumn and early winter flowering garden plants than Galanthus reginae-olgae and similar forms in our climate.
　
I might have another group of late-autumn snowdrops on hand. A friend gave me some plants of Galanthus elwesii sorts which, when I visited her garden a week of so ago, were in full bloom out in the open. It will be interesting to see what these do when they settle down and bloom in my garden.