On a rainy, windy spring day, flocks of white crowned sparrows and song sparrows have come in from the north and one of the latter is bobbing its tail and singing sweetly to me from a low branch: Sit right down.... and I'll sing for y--e--w--w--w. Out in the garden, nosing around for something to take a picture of, I found this little snowdrop just opening its flowers. Galanthus 'Scharlockii' has a light green blush on each outer petal, which I find quite lovely. It's a small, late-blooming snowdrop, a clone of Galanthus nivalis that was discovered almost two hundred years ago in Germany. It has been nurtured in gardens all of this time; a high testament to its beauty.

reBlogged to snowdrop

Posted by IBOY Reblogged by Old Roses to snowdrop on 2008-04-11, 06:51:41

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Snowdrop 'Trotter's Merlin' is thought to be a hybrid of Galanthus elwesii x plicatus. It is noteworthy for having the inner petals completely covered with green, except for a dainty white edging at the bottom. I assume the Trotter in this case is Dick Trotter, a well known gardener who has one of the most beautiful, deep colored colchicums named after him, and also a strain of hellebores. . . .

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Posted by IBOY Reblogged by Old Roses to snowdrop on 2008-03-31, 04:46:46

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Galanthus woronowii (wor-uh-nov-ee-eye) is a species that is sometimes called the 'green snowdrop', because of its very distinctive leaves, which are broad and deep, waxy green. It is native from Turkey up through the Caucasus to southern Russia and it is particularly common on the eastern shore of the Black Sea. Because its native haunts are rather dry, it tolerates dryness in the garden, and a fair amount of sun. The flowers are rather small in proportion to the lush foliage, and ghostly pale. The green marking on the inner petals is also distinctive, looking somewhat blocky, like a molar tooth rather than the more common upside down heart seen for example on Galanthus elwesii. Also noteworthy is the prominent notch on each inner petal at the base of each green spot. This is a rapidly multiplying snowdrop for me, and has quickly formed a dense clump that needs dividing this year, so in only three years my original six bulbs have become thirty. I am almost at that point where I can drop a little comment now and then about how most of the obscure snowdrop species don't seem to do well for other people here in the midwest, but this one is becoming quite a pest for me.

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Posted by IBOY Reblogged by Old Roses to snowdrop on 2008-03-27, 06:16:30

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Galanthus 'Bitton' is a very small snowdrop; a nivalis clone (nivalis being the small 'English' or 'European' snowdrop species). Bitton is known for being a husky version of nivalis and for having a thick, straight flower stem (a rather relative thing, since nivalis is such a tiny, frail-looking little thing... we're talking about a sturdy version of a four inch tall flower). I assume this clone is named after either the Parish of Bitton, or Bitton Village which lies in that parish; they are in the county of Gloucester, in S.W. Great Britain; a lovely spot indeed, which many years ago I traversed traveling to Bath, on my way to Cornwall to go hiking. I eventually found that Gloucester is pronounced gloss-ter, much to the amusement in the meantime of the locals (though they had no ready answer when I asked why they kept wasting time and ink putting syllables in their words if they weren't going to ever pronounce them). I only later thought I should also have asked if Gloucester is Glosster and Worcester is Wooster why isn't Winchester pronounced Winster? They probably wouldn't have had an answer to that either.

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Posted by IBOY Reblogged by Old Roses to snowdrop on 2008-03-26, 05:59:59

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reBlogged to snowdrop bulbs

Posted by Gotta Garden Reblogged by Old Roses to bulbs, snowdrop on 2007-12-20, 00:29:14

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Every flower gardener has issues and questions about things in their garden, that they go around and around about... for better or worse, a lot of mine are documented in some detail in this blog. Take the issue of identifying my fall-blooming snowdrop; it's a minor problem (how could it be otherwise with a plant all of four inches tall), but a vexing one. . . .

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Posted by IBOY Reblogged by Old Roses to snowdrop on 2007-12-02, 00:24:08

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For the last several years, this little snowdrop has bloomed in November; it is in a patch of Galanthus elwesii bulbs, but at first I thought it must be one of the fall-blooming species of galanthus that somehow got mixed in with elwesii (which blooms January-February, depending on the winter). After some research, I found that it was a naturally occurring late-fall blooming variety of elwesii. The first time it bloomed, it looked very fragile and kind of sick. Last year it looked a little better, but it hadn't reappeared this year, so I assumed it was either a goner, or it had made up its mind to bloom in early spring like all of the other snowdrops. . . .

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Posted by IBOY Reblogged by Old Roses to snowdrop on 2007-11-23, 01:35:28

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Don of An Iowa Garden gets the prize–uh, actually, there is no prize–gets the glory for the First Snowdrop of 2007, North American Division. Shucks, it’s hardly any fun when...

reBlogged to snowdrop on Jan 10, 2007, 4:29PM

Posted by Kathy Purdy Reblogged by Old Roses to snowdrop on 2007-01-11, 16:36:04

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Being a pioneer is always risky; in the plant world following your own pathway can be fatal. I was quite surprised, therefore, to find a snowdrop blooming in our Iowa garden today. It obviously is the same snowdrop that I found blooming early this year right after New Year's Day... I guess that wasn't startling enough for this little bulb, so now it's blooming in the fall. . . .

Freaky! -OR

reBlogged to snowdrop on Nov 9, 2006, 10:33AM

Posted by IBOY Reblogged by Old Roses to snowdrop on 2006-11-10, 00:25:56

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