The strange and beautiful flowers of Fritillaria meleagris have enthralled us for centuries as the name itself shows.
The chequered pattern of the purple, pink or sometimes white flowers gave them the name fritillary from the squares on a chess or gaming board. And the Latin meleagris is from the word for guinea fowl as the checks on a fritillary’s petals are like the checked pattern of a guinea fowl’s feathers.
There’s always been a dark or slightly sinister side to Fritillaries as the Snakeshead suggests. The word reflects both the scaly-like pattern and the shape of the unopened flower buds that resemble a snake’s head poised to strike.
But worry not, I find they strike me with their beauty, not their venom. That’s why I grow some at the top of a bed sloping up from the house to the yard. Looking up from the path below, I find it’s the ideal spot to catch the morning sun shining through their hanging flowers.
Where else in the garden could you enjoy their beauty? Because they grow, or rather grew, profusely in damp meadows in southern England they’re often said to require moist, rich soil. But, like so many plants, they can’t tolerate bulb-rotting winter wet. Fritillary bulbs have a depression in the centre where moisture can lie, so prevent any rotting by planting bulbs on their sides.
Fritillaries are also, confusingly, recommended for rockeries which are certainly well drained but not usually damp. Fritillaries probably tolerate a range of conditions. In Switzerland, for example, they grow both in lowland meadows and in the Jura, but we’re probably told the plant’s ‘natural habitat’ is a damp meadow because that’s where self-sustaining fritillary populations have thrived in England.
The obsessive Scots gardener James Justice grew fritillaries at Crichton House, Midlothian in the 18th century. He purchased bulbs from Holland and also saved seed and raised his own plants. It is not clear which of the many species of fritillaries he grew, but they certainly included meleagris. He describes one flower he raised from seed as “a large bell, and of an admirable snow white colour, chequered with black”.
Only the likes of Justice could face the 6 -7 year wait for the first flowers. But bulbs, not necessarily from Holland, are readily available and should be planted now. They are more fragile than many spring flowering bulbs so handle carefully and plant as soon as you get them so they don’t dry out.
When deciding where to plant choose a site that is not completely dry in summer nor waterlogged in winter. And do not let them be crowded by other plants. F. meleagris grows and will spread in grass but its foliage must be left to die down naturally before you mow, probably in July. Then you must mow at least another couple of times so that in spring the sward is short and easy for the young fritillary shoots to grow through.
Plant the bulbs 10 cm deep either in the open ground or in a pot. Pots should be moved to a semi shaded place after flowering so that the fritillaries do not get too hot and dry. If establishing snakeshead fritillaries in grass, start bulbs in a pot, grow on for a year and then plant out in clumps in the grass.
Once established these fritillaries should keep flowering for many years and will spread, slowly, by offsets or “rice grain” bulbils.
Plant of the Week
Sichuan Pepper, Zanthoxylum simulans, is a small tree or shrub with leaves that are similar to an ash, turning bright yellow in autumn. The stems are spiny and new growth is reddish. The umbels of flowers are small but the seeds ripen to red and are highly aromatic. The seed case has the best flavour - a numbing, peppery taste. But the new leaves in spring are only softly spiny and finely chopped in to a dish release the same peppery effect.
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