camassia leichtlinii alba

I love collecting seeds - there's a special kind of magic with them. All so different but each with the promise of a beautiful plant encapsulated within.

And when they germinate and grow that promise begins to be realised. But, as all gareners will tell you, it is not always easy cultivating that magic and translating the promise of the seed into the fully grown plant. Gardeners have to be good at coping with delayed gratification.

In July 2011 Linda gave us a gift of seed collected from her white camassias (camassia leichtlinii alba). By 27 January 2012 I was reporting on this blog that the seeds had germinated. The seedlings were 'pricked out' into individual modules by dad and nurtured until they became dormant in the autumn.

On Monday we saw with excitement  that the bulblets had survived. Tiny green shoots were pushing through the grit .. and so, onto the next part of their journey.

Camassias enjoy moist soil and so we have planted our baby bulbs in the shaded area of the orchard. Eventually drifts of pure white camassias will follow the flowering cowslips. Hopefully the camassias will bulk up over 2013 and give us our first show of elegant white flowering stems in May of 2014.

Here's a photo of the beautiful blue camassias to be seen at the RHS Wisley Gardens.