Erythronium
Sue Higham
Posts: 85
As part of my garden regeneration project last year I lifted all the plants I want to keep, (200 pots and counting) but quite forgot about my sunshine yellow Erythronium so it got buried under black polythene. How on earth could I have accidentally covered one of my very, very favourite plants with black polythene???? Autumn - that's how. When I remembered and lifted it last week it looked very sorry for itself with about 20 peely-wally tentacles all desperately searching for daylight. There are signs of new leaves coming through but the question is ... will the old tentacles green up? Or - if I remove them will that further damage the plant or stimulate more new growth to feed the bulbs for next year? All suggestions gratefully received!
Last edited: 21 April 2017 22:05:08
Posts
If it was me I would dig it up, stick it in a pot, cut it back and put it in the cold frame where it will be nursed back to health with regular attention.
That's my suggestion.
What a shame Sue. Take care when moving them as both the stems and the tubers are very brittle and will snap easily. I personally would not cut them back despite them being so spindly but let them die back naturally now they have been uncovered.
Yeah you're probably right about not cutting it back Ladybird, it will green up soon enough. I put a paving stone over Soloman's Seal and it grew up around it. I was happy about that. Plants really want to live, I think we sometimes forget this!