Wild and wet

Snakes-head fritillary are wild flowers that are happy in wet places. Famously growing in water meadows at Oxford, they are now very rare in the wild and protected. You can buy bulbs if you have any ground that is wet during winter and spring. They die down after flowering in March and April. I don't dead head them as they are not messy.

They have spread nicely by seeds and by mice etc taking the bulbils off. Now I have them in a damp bed, in the long grass of the orchard and all along the drainage ditch that I dug to draw off the worst of the winter floods. Little darlings!

 

They are lovely..dont you get squirells digging your bulbs up?? as i stay away from bulbs for that reason...

 

Lovely pic! My friend's fritillery are just coming into bud. A lovely little flower you really have to look at to see all it's delicate markings.

 

Just coming in to bud! Wow - that really does say something about latitude. Mine have long gone to seed.

 

Yes mine are over and done with - I have a real love for Fritillaria, some of the bulbs now on offer are over �£20 of more unusual variety.

My now departed next door neigbour used to have all her back garden full of the snakes head ones, all different colours, the new occupiers (who have been there at least 10 years) just mow over them so they have now all gone more is the pitty.