Janet Baraclough wrote:
The message
from Kay contains these words:


At the nature park that I help look after, we have a large number
of
snowdrops growing on relatively steep banks.

A lot of them seem to have worked their way out of the ground and
rolled down several feet, and are lying on top of the ground with
a
couple of inches of leaf coming out of the bulb.

It's happening so often, that I'm beginning to wonder whether it's
entirely unintentional, or is in fact a mechanism for spreading -
snowdrop rolls loose, then start to put down roots where it lands.

Yes, I suspect so. They often make a spectacular show on wooded
hillsides where they naturalised.

Anyone any ideas? Is it worth going round collecting up the
scattered
bulbs and replanting them, or would they sort themselves out
anyway
if I left them alone?

--
Kay - who spent the morning covering up about 500 snowdrop
bulbsand
would be
quite happy not to see another sbowdrop bulb for quite a long
time.

They'd have done it for themselves eventually, but by speeding
up
their journey down to richer moister feeding, you've ensured the
clumps will multiply faster.

Snowdrops, like bluebells, have a root-mechanism for pulling their
immature bulbs deeper into the ground. There's a botanical term for
it
which I forget. I know from propagating bluebells that first-year
seedlings germinate right on the soil surface where they fall. Six
years later, the tops of the same bulbs will be at least 5 inches
below ground, where the ground level has not changed. In very old
colonies you can find living bulbs a foot deep or more.

Janet.

"Contractile roots", Janet? I also assume that they put on most of
their annual growth at the bottom, so they'll go down rather than up
even if the roots don't actually pull them down. The ones that pop
out must be the younger ones in a crowded clump, which never really
managed to find soil-room to grow downwards, and whose roots have
died of exposure.

At my last place I had a zillion snowdrops, and they used to behave
the same way. I always used to gather up the wanderers and replant
them away from the overcrowded parent clumps, partly because they got
slug-damaged on the surface, but mainly because I wanted to get up to
seven zillion as soon as possible. I never, therefore, saw any sign
that they were digging themselves in effectively; but I'm confident
at least some of them would have. Had my soil been light, I might
have been less careful about replanting: certainly, many of the
crowded-out bulbs would have a root or two stuck in by the time I got
to them. And certainly the little grassy seedlings always dug
themselves in.

(I can't quite imagine not wanting to see another snowdrop bulb,
though: I was always disappointed when I ran out! My favourite
flower, followed by the wild primrose.)

Mike.