scale division or cuttings

Chance to try out an idea that is new to me: taking what I think are called 'scale cuttings'. Gardening presenter Carol Klein had briefly demonstrated the technique in her 'cottage garden' TV series and so I was waiting for the chance to try it out.
The idea is to propagate new snowdrops by taking making divisions of snowdrop bulbs that will each go on to become healthy snowdrops in the future.


Here's what I did.


I took snowdrops that were completely dormant and cleaned the  bulbs so that there was no skin left.


I then sliced the bulbs lengthways with a sharp, clean knife so that part of the basal plate remained attached to each slice. Some bulbs were sliced into eight, others into fewer divisions as I tried the technique out.


I then put the slices into a plastic bag of vermiculite and tied the top of the bag. Finally, I placed the bag into a dark drawer.


There are bragging rights at stake: my dad is also trying the technique and to make it fair we are using vermiculite from the same source and snowdrops from the same clump.

Why do men have to make even something like this competitive??? I'm not proud.