Re: Hardy snapdragons
A number of years ago, while trying to make a garden out of an abondoned
railroad siding next to my son's school, I happend to glance up the
tracks which created an alley of sorts between the school and a major
street a few block away. The whole area was commonly used as a dumping
ground, hence the resons we were trying to make it into something
different in planting some interesting plants (still trying!).
Anyway, I saw a flash of pink flowers and was curious to see what it was.
I walked along the track to about the mid-point, and found a large
Snapdragon plant growing, in completely dry soil, amongst weeds and
debris, flowering away happily! I had always had a fondness for snaps
but never had any idea that they were so tough!
I tried many times to establish snaps in this 'garden' we were working
on at our end of the tracks, but as mentioned, they routinely got rust
and dwindled away. I am convinced by this discussion that I need the
right type - perhaps I ought to scour the neighborhoods for those
plants growing without aid in old gardens(?). Or if anyone has some of
these they'd like to share seed from . . .
BTW - now is a good time to plant snaps - they love the cooler weather
for growing a good sized plant for spring bloom. This would also seem to
help in them living as perennials. I advocate the older, regular flower
forms rather than the 'compact' or new 'azalea' flowered types. I still
get a kick out of working the 'jaws' of this flowers! ;-)
Sean O.
At 11:27 PM 9/10/99 PDT, Bob Beer wrote:
>I saw some large ones growing wild in Turkey. They were not subtly colored
>in the least - rather brazen pink. But they were close to 4' tall, and if
>they had been growing in something other than the rocks with dust in between
>that passes for soil in much of the Mediterranean, they would have been
>taller. If I get back this summer I'll watch for them.
>
>bob
>
>At 07:22 PM 9/10/99 -0700, Rand B. Lee wrote:
>>But the most amazing snaps I EVER saw in my LIFE were growing in the
>>greenhouses of a wealthy retiree on Long Island. Theyd been reared from
>>European florist snap seed of some kind -- I never found out the
>>cultivar name -- and they were 5 feet tall, white to pale pink, with a
>>strong, sweet fragrance like that of the catalpa tree. I would KILL
>>(well, maybe not kill -- MAIM) for some snaps like that...
Sean A. O'Hara sean.ohara@groupmail.com
h o r t u l u s a p t u s 710 Jean Street
'a garden suited to its purpose' Oakland, CA 94610-1459, U.S.A.
