Galanthomania in the US - related

Jim McKenney jamesamckenney@verizon.net
Sun, 26 Feb 2012 11:39:03 PST
Dell asked: "Has anyone grown them [Galanthus] in raised beds? Here in zone 6/ 7,  temps rarely even get below 0 F these days. "

Dell's post prompts two responses from me. 

For one thing, we're thinking along the same lines. I'll be 70 next year, and although I'm still pretty perky and everything is still working fine, the time will come when getting down close to the ground might not be so easy. So as I redesign my garden, I'm including raised beds, at least one of which I intend to be wheel chair accessible just in case I live that long. 

With regard to snowdrops in raised beds, I've noticed that some do not in fact seem to thrive there, at least when planted near the edge of a raised bed with a dry wall. And last year I learned a very painful lesson about this: a clump of one of the Greatorex double snowdrops which has been in the garden (moved over the years here and there) for perhaps thirty years was just about annihilated last year when a sudden overnight drop in temperature while the plant was in full bloom (dozens of blooming scapes) caused its site to freeze solid. A week later a slight, inquisitive tug pulled entire stems from the ground. This year there are one or two very frail, weak, nondescript more or less amaryllid-looking leaves which give me hope to think that the entire clump did not die. But even if they are the snowdrop in question, it will be years before they bloom again. 

The next snowdrops I plant in this raised bed will be planted on columns of ill draining clay and have a sheet of insulating material between them and the dry wall. 

The largest, fattest flowers of the double form of the common snowdrop that I've ever seen were growing in the mud beside some rutted tire tracks in another garden.  A section cut out and brought home with me and planted in a slightly raised bed survived for only three years. 

Who ever heard of a snowdrop dying? Well, now I have. 

Jim McKenney

jimmckenney@jimmckenney.com
Montgomery County, Maryland, USA, 39.021954º North, 77.052102º West, USDA zone 7
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----- Original Message -----
From: "ds429@comcast.net" <ds429@comcast.net>
To: Pacific Bulb Society <pbs@lists.ibiblio.org>
Cc: 
Sent: Sunday, February 26, 2012 2:03 PM
Subject: Re: [pbs] Galanthomania in the US - related



I love galanthus - not to the extreme of buying one for $50 - but enough to have a few different ones which please me each spring. Most are in peak bloom here in S outheastern Pennsylvania right now. I am wondering if they or any of the genus  could survive in a raised bed. As I age, the possibility of getting down close enough to the ground to smell their fragrance and see the variations in the green markings. etc. will become less of an option. Has anyone grown them in raised beds? Here in zone 6/ 7,  temps rarely even get below 0 F these days. 



Dell 



----- Original Message -----


From: "Bulborum Botanicum" <bulborum@gmail.com> 
To: "Pacific Bulb Society" <pbs@lists.ibiblio.org> 
Sent: Sunday, February 26, 2012 12:59:10 PM 
Subject: Re: [pbs] Galanthomania in the US 

They where dyed 
same as the blue one on ebay last year 

There exist a pale pink Convallaria majalis 'Rosea' 

Roland 



2012/2/26 Peter Taggart <petersirises@gmail.com> 

> I remember claims of a pinkish snowdrop a few years ago but I don't know if 
> i still exists. 
> Peter (UK) 
> 
> 

-- 
R de Boer 
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F 27260 EPAIGNES 
FRANCE 

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