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Jeff Layman[_2_] · 11-04-2017, 07:48 AM posted to uk.rec.gardening

On 10/04/17 23:49, Janet wrote:
In article , says...

On 9 Apr 2017 10:23, (Nick Maclaren) wrote:

I have a bed where lily of the valley has got out of hand. Well, it
retires hurt when it meets Dana racemosa (no surprise there!), and
can't do more than hold its own against paeonies and (vigorous)
heather, but the real surprise is a patch of snakeshead fritillaries.
Not merely are they holding their own, they seem to be discouraging
it from growing through them at all. Yes, it does, but much less
vigorously than elsewhere.

Any comments?

Lucky you to have both doing well :-)

Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

Third time lucky for me with Lilly of the Valley, at least this time
they have come up again and with flowers showing. Planted it this time
with the ferns, shady and moist, but maybe it didn't like it's
neighbours where I've planted it before. Interesting.

I struggled in vain for decades in different gardens to establish
lily of the valley, and last year was the first successful flowering.
This year the colony has started to spread (yippee). A great favourite
of mine.

They love you or hate you. I've put them in several spots in various
gardens and after a few years they disappeared.

But in our latest garden I made a 600 x 600 mm box, 300 mm deep, on a
north-facing wall. It holds ericaceous soil (mainly to grow Lapageria),
but I also put in a small pot of Convallaria majalis 'Vic Pawlowski's
Gold' 3 years ago. IIRC there were 4 or 5 plants in the pot. A week ago
I removed the winter protection, and found at least 3 dozen plants
spreading all over the place! And there seem to be a few more coming up
under other plants, too.

--

Jeff