Snapdragons

I want to talk through what I’ve learned from personal experience growing snapdragons. I’m going to approach this in a Christmas Carol kind of way… what happened in the past, what I’m doing now in the present and what I want to change in the future.

Past: Last year I made the big mistake of planting out nearly an entire row in one beautiful variety (mostly Chantilly light salmon, then a smaller amount of Costa Mix). The Chantilly was beautiful and fluffy as mentioned before, but the stems were not as thick or tall as the Costa. The other thing I messed up was all the snapdragons were the early flowering type /early group. So many buckets of the same color, I ended up donating a lot of them to the kids Sunday school class so they could make bouquets for their moms on Mother’s Day. Because they were all early groups / types of snaps, when it got hot they went dormant. I’d occasionally get a secondary shoot here and there; surprisingly the foliage was beautiful most of the year. I would have loved to left them in the ground to see what they look like after their second winter, but if they did perennialize, it felt wasteful to use all my space up over one color… so I mowed them down to start over.

Present: After doing more research I understand the 4 groups of snapdragons a little better. As the number increases so does the heat tolerance, and according to charts and tables I’ve seen, there’s possibility for second flushes or using a group that love cool in early spring, in cooler fall as well. You can read books all day, but planting out in your own dirt and climate is the best way to find out what works for me.

All the snaps were planted out into biofilm last week in approximately a 6 by 4 inch spacing. They were started indoors in trays under grow lights at week 35. I’ve included a pic of the varieties I’ve chosen. 100 of each, except 300 for the Rocket mix which had good reviews as a more heat tolerable cultivar. Hopefully this will allow not only variety in color, but also blooms spreads out over the growing season.

Future: Based on how this experiment goes and my observations about each variety, I would like to see if these would perennialize. If you could’ve seen the foliage, it was beautiful even though there was no flowers. I’d like to keep them where they’re at, maybe mulch around them at the end of the year and treat them as a perennial just to see what happens with all the different groups. If all else fails and the experiment goes sideways with a second over wintering, I could just flip the bed in early spring and plant some later season heat loving varieties.

Anyone out there periennialized snaps before? Love to hear your experience. My biggest fear is that a bigger plant will be more susceptible to cold damage than a small one tucked close into the ground.