Terry mentioned his snowdrops are blooming. This must be one of the few flowers that bloom in Texas and England at the same time. I keep waiting for some sun to dry mine out enough for them to flare their skirts.

Bet you took some lovely pics of yours Terry, before the window men tromped around the place. hint,hint :-)

Nope, sorry Maggie, they beat me, I'll try to get some when they have recovered. The snowdrops, that is, not the workmen. Yours are different to mine having a broader leaf, do you know the variety? Don't they look great through the old leaves.

These were sold to me as G. byzantinus, one of the Turkish varieties. I have checked 20 pics of Galanthus plates, in hopes of confirming it. Amazing how many varieties there are. All the Turkish ones appear to have broader leaves with a glaucous or bluey huey.
Anything from Turkey usually does well here because of its same limey (not a dig ;-) alkaline soil, hot summers and similar rain patterns. Yours are probably one of the varieties native to wet woodsy glens or the cool alpines. Makes it all the more intriguing that both of ours bloom together!

I have tried quite a few different ones in the past, one with green tips on the outer petals, one a double found originally on the banks of the Thames, not the common double but a much larger variety. Unfortunately all have been lost over the years. For some reason, probably competition they don't do too well in my damp shaded back garden, but thrive in my dry sunny front one. Talk about contadicting convention. I wish I had more varieties they are lovely little bulbs, but the rarer ones are expensive, up to £10.00 for one bulb.

Wow! the same price for a 5 gallon rose as for one little bulb!
Since the woodsy gals get winter sun under deciduous trees in the wild, I'm not surprized that they prefer your front, as your back is totally shaded in winter. And you call your front 'dry'... hahahahaaha Sorry Terry - 100 days without rain is DRY to me!

I'll have some snowdrops blooming too - but you'll have to wait until around April to see them.

I wonder if yours are the Leucojum aestivum with white bell blooms, sometimes called snowflakes? They bloom in spring for me too. The names often get crossed between the two. I don't seem to have a pic of it on puter for you see, sorry. They grow much taller, if that helps.

Here is my tiny Cornus red-bark dogwood. I bought a bare root of it so long ago that I have lost track of its exact id, but I believe it is the C. alba. They like a wet site, so mine just hangs on thru the summer, without getting very large. This actually works out quite well, since there is not much room for it there, to get much larger. I plan to move it for more space and better irrigation, against a white wall to better enjoy its winter color.

Pretty color on the dogwood. I'm assuming that you can plant snow drops just any old place?

Winter sun, summer shade has worked well for me here. My Turks did ok on the same amount of irrigation as the lawn, other varieties probably want more water than that in hot climates. Good drainage is essential.

I have just one Leucojum hanging on in the back, or at least it was last year, shall have to mount a search party. The Cornus looks good against the snow, my red one has been swamped by the green one, both have their roots in very wet soil at the side of the stream.
We get dry as well Maggie, hmmmm. 1972 I seem to remember. We had a holiday in Bournemouth and the only green grass to be seen was some plastic stuff on a garage forecourt. Last year was somewhat more damp.

Sorry I forgot to mention MK's name in the post about maybe hers was the Leu instead of the Gal, Terry.
Interesting that your Leu is as iffy there as my gals here, when your gals probably multiply as madly as leus do for us here. I'm getting dizzy just from typing that!

Yep, a drought every 30 years sure is hard on you Brit gardeners ;-)
Altho, I have also seen browning grass more recently in the last decade. It's story time again. See the luscious lawn in this link to Bodium Castle. One day of an extra hot English summer, the biggest attraction at this amazing place was a single hose-end lawn sprinkler - all the children in the place (and some adults) were gathered around it, mesmerized by the sprinkler, much more than the castle. They had never seen one before. This was amusing enough to this Texan gardener that I took a pic of the folks standing around the sprinkler! (too lazy to dig it out and scan in my pic)

Oops, here's that link again

Bodium Castle

Maggie, I'll take a picture of my sundrops come spring so you can tell me what kind they might be. I inherited them with the house, so they have been here for many years. You're right, I don't think they are the Galanthus (according to the catalog picture). I didn't realize there were the different varieties.

Maggie's dogwood has such red twigs yet! I'm going to have to cut mine back drastically this spring. They are taking over the rock bed in front of them. Hopefully, I won't butcher them and they will give me more red twigs.

Grass?? Is that the green stuff that used to be where all this white stuff is? Can you tell I'm getting cabin fever here? J

Good link Maggie, nice pics of the castle and what a water feature, just imagine being let loose on that with pond plants and marginals.

Enjoyed the link.

Yep Terry, I always wander off into those thoughts too, when seeing still water banks!
Glad to hear it Caro.
Bodium is an awsome experience, being one of the few castles to keep a maintained moat and so much of it is still standing and well maintained. Some of its support moneys has come from a few movies having used it as a set. It was built during the 100 yrs war to defend the coast from poss French invasion. Must have been a really good strategic site, as pill box shelters were also built on the grounds in WWII - and are still there. It is such a wonderful place, that I enjoy returning at every chance to take another ride in its time machine.

Do cyclamen reseed in your garden Terry?

The hederifolium one does Maggie, but not the coum. I am down to one plant of the latter and am hoping to gather seed this year to start off in pots, don't want to lose it. My garden is a lot like the rain forests, many species die out due to loss of habitat (overgrown by others due to gardener not taking more care). The C. coum is a beauty, particularly as it flowers in January. Now I'll turn it back on you Maggie and ask what species you grow? I know there are quite a few that are not hardy for me, that like dry summers coming from Africa so no excuses now. J

Ahhh, no wheezing allowed ? ;-)
The C. coum image above was made a year or two ago. I went outside to check on them yesterday. Had to almost lay down to work the leaves away from the plants to find the buds. Looks to be a good crop this year! Also found a slug, so hope he doesn't have a big family lurking nearby.
I asked if yours re-seeded because I often read of gardeners in the UK complaining about cyclamen reseeding toooo much. I can't imagine that being a problem with flowers in Jan? I know they take 2-3 yrs to reach bloom from seed but mine have been there so many yrs without spreading. Every year I go looking for infants - now after posting that above, I think I finally have some babies this year!!! Will try to get a pic, if the slugs haven't beat me to it :)

I keep waiting and waiting for Terry to post a pic of his snowdrops now that they are blooming.

They are still not photogenic with window fitters footprints all over them. Slugs don't seem to bother the cyclamen Maggie. I have a dead goldfish floating in the pond, you would think with four cats one would get it out for me. Have to open the greenhouse and get the net, see how the botrytis is doing at the same time. Don't I sound depressing and really I'm feeling good January is almost over, garden will soon be coming back to life.

Typical moggys - never doing what you need them to do! Our Ms Moggy landed in the trash bin today - head first. It's not that she falls a lot, she just unexpectedly hits things while in mid-flight.

I should have considered it may have been pill bugs instead of slugs, if cycs survive in your garden Terry! Now we have seen your 6" monster slugs, I should use your site's page as a slug-proof plant ref. If something survives there, we can be sure it can live among slugs!

Am glad to report there were no pill bugs around the cyc and maybe that is why I am seeing infant seedling leaves this year - as well as a good crop of bloom buds. Putting nemetodes in the compost just might be the leverage needed to pull the pillbug sword from the stone. (let's blame that one on our cyber trip to Bodium:)

I just ordered enough nematodes for an acre. There are ants all over the place, and with all the roses going in, that's the last thing I need since they bring their little friends, the aphids.

Someone told me the other day, that the nematodes may be applied with a hose end sprayer for large areas. Anyone tried that? I'd prefer not to have surprise fire ants in the lawn either.

For those of you who don't have fire ants, those little devils can make their homes in the ground, without making an "ant hill." So you have no warning of what's about to happen, until you look down and see hundreds of them on your feet. About that time they usually start biting the heck out of you. Must get those nematodes busy!

Carolyn, as small as the little bennies are, I would think a hose-end would work just fine. I'm the lazy one who puts them in my watering can and walks the property tipping the watering can every once in a while, especially around the house. I had termites one spring and quickly put DE/pyrethrum between the walls and put out bennies. Haven't seen them since and it's been 9 years so I swear by the bennies.

I use a watering can for doing small areas too, and a particular kind of hose-end sprayer when doing larger areas. Most hose-end bottles do not have a large enough tube and nozzle to carry the bn's solid stuff and will get stopped up. Mine is called a 'No Clog'. It has no tube - the liq and solids are forced directly into a channel in the lid, instead of a tube. Then it sprays out a hole on the lid.

Haven't had big fire ant prob in a long time. Funny thing is, that when we have a wet spell in summer (trying to remember when that was last:), all the neighbor's fire ants move uphill into my yard for higher/drier land. They go into the edge of the long border and make huge mounds on the raised edgings with dirt from their excavations. Ants life span is about a week, so eventually, my benes defeats them by doing in the eggs, until the new colonies are extinct. This is cool, because it does in the neighbors ants without me having to trespass over there ;-)

Mama Kane, I found that image of the leucojum snowflake flower on another puter, while doing the new comestrollie.

I keep meaning to ask, Maggie, how do you remove the background from your flower pics?

Yes, Maggie. I was wondering about that also.

Very top secret , high tech stuff that. I shoot um on a black background ;-)

Do the nematodes remain in your soil, or do you have to replace them? Sure wonder why no one mentioned this to me when I was trying to garden in GA?

This organic pest control is a whole new field to me. Will anything help with the slugs? I usually just use the pick em off method. uck.

I don't know about slugs, MK. In town, my neighbor had slugs and I didn't. I used lots of compost, put in beneficial nematodes, didn't use chemical anything. She used miracle grow, weed and feed, bark mulch, but nothing really good for the soil, beer traps, searching for slugs in the night with a flashlight. Nothing helped. Then she dug out the soil (clay and rock) and replaced it with good compost, bags and bags of potting soil, and kept it heavily mulched. I never heard anything about slugs after that.

Oh, and one of the lazy ways I composted, was to run my kitchen scraps through the vitamix and puree them. Then I'd dump the whole mess in the flower bed. It would disappear so quickly you cannot imagine. Usually, I couldn't tell from one day to the next where I had last dumped the scraps.

MK, my favorite slug deterrant is pecan shell mulch. Do ya'll have broken pecan shells? I just put them around my few hostas and the slugs stay clear because of the cut edges. If you don't have access to pecan shells, then chop up pet or human hair into fine pieces and spread beneath plants.

You may have so many plants that need help because of your garden's size -- if so, DE might be your best choice. It's the easiest to spread, doesn't take much to cover a lot.

Then there's the usual beer traps. Need more info or is that enough of a start?

I'll wait and see how bad the slugs are this spring. Some years are worse than others. I'll probably try some of the DE if they are bad. Thanks. (no pecan shells here)

About having to replace the bene nematodes MK,,, we Texans refer to doing that because their numbers can dwindle or go to zilch if the soil dries out very deep down. Terry wouldn't have much need to restock his garden with them!

The nemies do not seem to have an effect on slugs, rather they destroy egg layer's larvas. I have never seen it referred to, that nemies would help control pill bugs, which is why I am always making exciting reports about my declining numbers of pillbugs. See, it finally occurred to me that my compost piles were always full of them because they were breeding in there. And that the borders were being infested with them every time I spread the compost. So I applied the nemies to the pile instead of to just the borders. I am not sure if that is the reason for the garden's pillbug decline, but something sure has made a difference. Someone call A&M. We need a controlled lab study on this!!!

Catching up here on some promised pics.
The snowdrops showing their pantaloon's green hearts.

and baby cyclamen's leaves. Hooray! it's Finally multiplying! The flower buds in the background are probably too out of focus to show but are opening now I removed the leaves.

I shall have to get some of your Snowdrops Maggie, the only unusual one I have left is G. ikarie a green leaved late flowering variety that actually survives against a North wall. You should collect the seeds from your C. coum and sow them in seed trays, they germinate pretty good but do take a long time, so don't throw them out thinking you failed. The corms cost about £2.00 each for the common variety so they are very satisfying to produce, sort of like forging £2.00 coins. J

Then they would be like 3 lbs ;-) here. No fair, I can't do the fancy L.
I shall have a go at the seeds then - love the way the stems coil themselves down to deposit each seed pod next to the earth. When do you think they will be ripe enough to separate from the mother? .. just when they get to the ground, or some time later?

I would think about May or June, Maggie, but keep an eye on them, if they burst before you will lose them.
You can copy and paste the £ from mine. ;-)

£ £ £ cool, now everytime I need one, I can come here to get it !
Hummm if the cyc seeds mature in may or june here, that would agree with my theory as to why the galanths also never reseeded here,, in that it is usually too hot/dry for them to self-sow at that time... and if so, explains why my cyc pulled it off last year, as we had a very wet May and June in 2000. Will be in front bed with magnifying glass today, looking for baby gals leaves ;-)
I so hope I remember to keep an eye on both of them this spring to catch the seed and have a go germinating them in airconditioned indoors. Thanks Terry.

I can understand your problem with the Galanthus, Maggie, if you examine the ripe seedpod you will find not true seeds but embryo bulbs, and these will soon dry up if not buried as soon as they leave the pod. The Cyclamen seeds are more conventional but the babies are so tiny they soon get swamped. Cooler indoors sounds just the place for the Cyclamen, but the snowdrops would be better buried where you intend them to grow. My Galanthus are so crowded the bulbs are now germinating on the surface, having been pushed up by weight of numbers, ain't it terrible. J

Well now, that does make a difference!!! Bet your rain knocks um down to the ground to spatter-bury them. Then those that are germinating on the surface (grrr:) didn't need to be buried cause they stay wet enough until they get their roots in, your weather being what it is ;-) Sounds like another case for an airconditioning trial, if I just remember / am-able to catch the pods in time. It would be so satisfying if our chat on this produced plant results!

I had been taking some more pics for this thread all week, and decided there were so many that it would be just as easy to make it a Come stroll instead of bogging down the page with all of the pics. Here's one of the evergreen perennials (well, silver really) that I am esp pleased with. It is an improved selection of Helichrysum thianschanicum

Just getting your own back now Maggie, showing plants that don't do well in wet climates. That one is a beauty and I never heard of it before now.

Okay, Maggie share the "improved" Helichrysum's name so I can copy-cat please!

Teehee Terry

Gail, I'll share more than the name 'Icicles' if you want to come get some cuttings! It is meant to stay 7" tall, but after nearly 2 years, they are starting to get leggy. The bare stems dont show in the frame, but I'm intending to give them a hair cut in hopes of making better parents and lots of babies. I started with 4, 4" pots all placed in diff areas of the garden to learn their tricks. High drainage was def required,,, the 2 on highest ground survived my heavy soil.
So Terry, they might do for you in pure sand ;-)

Here's one undergoing my garden's Texas testing - Iris reticulata blooming this week. Book says 'requires cool damp climate with extreme drainage'. These bulbs live in the full-sun French Drain Bed with that high drainage but only with same irrigation as the Bermuda lawn. They have survived thru these last 2 extreme summers, to come into their 2nd year of bloom... Proving once again, that an adventurous gardener never believes everything she reads ... and occasionally has reason to rejoice for it ;-)

Can't grow those, Maggie, they flower once then show no more, could be a slug thing. There is a yellow one called, I think, Katherine Hodgekiss, you must try that one, straw yellow with darker markings. So we both have Iris flowering in February, but on two completely different plants, your tiny bulbs and my enormous clump of Unguicularis.

I don't know if ya'll have hear of this NEW stuff that is organic and safe around pets. It is called 'SLUGGO'. It is manufactured by Monterey Chemial in California. It is suppost to be 100% Organic.....I will give you the web-site if you are interested... www.montereylawngarden.com It might be a good product has any one used it???

This iron phosphate product sounds interesting, thanks David. I'll put it on a popup link to the order page - scroll down their page for :
'Sluggo' organic slug getter
I think I saw that brand in a Dallas nursery - so it might be available 'rounds these parts too. Let's keep an eye out for it.

Here's Terry's Feb-blooming Iris unguicularis. And wait till you see his Snowdrop pics... makes my mouth water!

Thank you for the advice on the new product David, I'll look out for it over here.

What with all the server changes and downtime, I wasn't able to write a comestroll on the wintergreen perennials, so will just start a new winter thread for those pics I was collecting last month.

Maggie and Terry - interested in snowdrops?

Here's a site full of pictures. This gardener collects snowdrops, I even think he lives in TX.

snowdrops

Lovely photos, what a shame the varieties are not named. I spotted a snowflake amongst the snowdrops.

Yes, I felt the same about the names. If he is in Tex, I want to meet him. If he grows them too, he can have my babies.
Thanks for posting that for us MK.