Bulbs: Snowdrop varieties, 1 by zonedenial

zonedenial wrote:
Boniton... it's a long story, but basically I bought G. ikariae bulbs in the fall of 2005, thinking there was little chance they'd make it through the winter, because the writer of a classic American book on bulbs, who gardened in zone 7a said they weren't hardy for her. Well, mine came up last spring and bloomed. i was SO smug, and published about it on my garden blog, but I always kind of wondered why I (in 5a) could grow them. Then this winter I was doodling around on the Scottish Rock Garden Club site, and found a discussion about G. ikariae by a real expert, and he said almost all the ikariae in commerce is really G. woronowii; the foliage is similar but the green marks on woronowii are small, usually heart shaped, with a prominent notch in the petals right in the middle of the blotch... just like my supposed ikariae. Woronowii comes from much further north than ikariae, so is hardier. Here is a picture of my "ikariae", now woronowii from last spring. Apparently woronowii has even naturalized in Great Britain. The green marks on ikariae are much larger, looking to me like a molar tooth broken off half-way down the roots.
Don