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As soon as the first spring sun warms the earth a little, small green bushes with delicate white bells begin to look out of the snow cover. This galantus tells us that the cold winter is receding, very soon the nature will wake up and everything will turn green.
Cute amaryllis plants are better known as snowdrops and are often found on the forest edges, in meadows or on rocky slopes. But their charming flowering and delicate aroma are so attractive that they began to grow a culture at home. Why not, because snowdrops are absolutely not demanding, besides they will decorate the plot at the time when the rest of the flowers are still in the stage of deep dormancy.
Where is it better to plant a plant called “galantus” and what needs to be done to create conditions as close as possible to natural ones? Let's talk about it today.
Choosing a flower bed for galantus
Snowdrops are very fond of the sun and react sensitively to its warmth: it is this that causes them to wake up as soon as possible from hibernation. For planting primroses, it is better to take a sunny place in the foreground of a flower bed - white bells can be clearly seen there. However, galantus are also able to grow in light penumbra, but here are very shaded places in the depths of the plot for them are definitely not suitable.
In deep shade, the soil is usually too wet and does not dry out for a long time, which adversely affects the development of the plant. The bulbs from excess moisture can start to hurt and rot, besides, the very flowering there will not be so early and abundant.
As for the soil, snowdrops, or galantus, prefer light, friable soil. Poor and heavy clay soil requires preliminary preparation, namely the introduction of:
- sand;
- humus or other organic fertilizer.
When can you plant galantus?
Most often snowdrops are propagated by bulbs. They can be planted in two ways:
- in early spring;
- between late summer and mid-autumn( if it is warm).
When buying a galantus, you should choose large and healthy bulbs, without signs of mechanical damage and rotting.
If necessary, the purchased seed is subject to short-term storage in sawdust or shavings, but not more than 1 month, otherwise the bulbs may dry. To extend the shelf life up to 3 months, galantus should be placed in peat or moss and kept it wet all the time until planting bulbs.
If you got an already formed and flowering bush, you can also plant it, but this is more a necessary measure than a rule. It is not recommended to propagate the flower galantus in this way, since in the flowering plant the bulb has already given most of its strength. A weakened bulb will not be able to provide good nutrition, and as a result, the entire aboveground part will quickly wither. Moreover, next spring, such a bush may not even bloom at all, or its flowering will be scarce.
There is another way of propagation of snowdrops - seed. It is also used at home, while the seeds are sown immediately in open ground in early spring, bypassing the stage of growing seedlings.
As the seeds lose their germination very quickly, they are not stored, but sown shallowly as quickly as possible.
Most of the varieties of galantus, the photos of which are presented below, reproduce perfectly self-sowing. 
It remains only to transplant the bushes grown next to the mother plant into a separate flower bed so as not to thicken the planting.
How to plant onions?
Snowdrops look very nice for group plantings, therefore, it is better to plant bulbs with small “companies”, leaving a distance of at least 3 cm between them.
You should not deepen the bulbs. But if such a thing happened - nothing terrible, the galantuses themselves regulate the landing and the daughter bulbs are formed at the optimum depth for them.
When planting the bulbs, the galantus will bloom in the second year, and the plant derived from the seeds will only bloom for 4 years.
How to care for primroses?
Planting flowers and caring in the open field for galantuses are not at all complicated, and they will not give the gardeners much trouble. Watering a flower bed is necessary only if the winter was snowless and spring does not spoil the rain. The rest of the time, snowdrops have enough of the moisture that is formed in the garden after melting snow drifts.
You need to feed snowdrops only during their active growth using potassium phosphate fertilizers. Nitrogen-containing drugs should be used in minimal doses, because from them the plants are actively increasing their leafy mass. A thick bush will not only “forget” about flowering, but may also begin to ache.
In the description of galantuses in any scientific literature, one of their main advantages is the high frost resistance of the crop, and this is absolutely true: snowdrops hibernate well even without additional shelter.
In the fifth year of life, galantuses need a transplant. Usually by this time the bush consists of a large number of bulbs, so simultaneously with the transplant young bulbs are separated and planted.
Perhaps this is all that is worth knowing when planning to plant and care for galantusi. Grow the first spring heralds at home and enjoy their extraordinarily beautiful flowering and delicate aroma!
