I don't know your climate in detail, but I think your guess is right, too dry and too warm in summer. This species needs to stay slightly moist during summer, never completely dry and never waterlogged. Maybe you could move to the other island :)

I don't know about Fritillaria camschatcensis (correct spelling I believe), but its an American species so probably prefers drier summers than F. meleagris.

Frit. meleagris grows in wet spring meadows in the wild, dryish in summer, but flowers and seeds readily in our local chalky soil. Frit. camchatensis is an acid loving plant for wet peaty soils; I can only grow it in pots and then I think it suffers from lime in my tap water.

Brian

I knew there were bits missing from the name! Thanks, shrubs n bulbs! I know there's a Kamchatka in Russia - near the Bering Sea. Above 50 lat, so perhaps a peaty, gritty mix and a diet of ice lollies. Perhaps dappled light. Our UV can be hard for many plants.

Brian2cv. Lime and only dryish. I think I can manage that. And I know where there are some in the autumn sales. Heh, heh, heh! Off I go again!

Thank you both.

I planted four clumps in a brew that includes ancient leaf mold, very ancient cowpats at the fluffy stage, grit, and ordinary potting mix.

For company, there's one clump of Imperata cylindrica. An indicator plant. If it wilts when it's up in summer, I need to water. (A mini grassland...)

I didn't add lime, but I'm hoping the cowpats will keep things in the neutral zone. Perhaps a side dressing in spring, as a little treat.

Fingers crossed.

I hadn't considered lime as important before, but it might be. They thrive around here on limestone based soils, but also in the meadows around Oxford. I haven't tested the meadow soil but the whole area is calcaerous clay, with mostly calcaerous alluvial deposits.

F.camschatcensis, I found out, is in both North America and Asia. And it is said to naturally break into lots of little pips.

The 'said' didn't say what to do next, however, so they're snug in a deep pot, in a cold, damp place and I'm gardening with crossed fingers. (You wouldn't believe how tricky that is!)

Yes they do break up if you handle them roughly, or even gently sometimes. The pips or rice grains are a good way of propagation, as each will eventually form a new larger bulb. Several other fritillaries, and lilies have a rice grain like bulb. Supposedly if you pot with the loose rice grains around the mother bulb they will be absorbed, but I have never understood this, and can't see how they can be accept by rotting and feeding the parent bulb.

Brian

If it is summer heat/dryness that is a problem, could you grow them under herbaceous perennials - Christopher Lloyd suggests under gunnera in one of his books but presumably any late unfurling perennial would work as well as long as its roots are not too invasive. I don't have a problem with lack of rain here and cut my first snakeshead flowers for the house this morning.
Best wishes
Jane

Hi Jane

Wouldn't it be great to have a garden big enough for Gunnera?! I think our timing is different at this end, but it could have been the wet, cold winter, spring, early summer last year. The meleagris was up well before any of the Hostas, and just beat the fern fronds. Toward the end of September.

And you CUT them! Oh, the luxury of it! I tiptoe most reverently past my dauntless trio.

Hi Brian

Thank you for the added information. I've noticed with F pontica, that the big ones with lots of room seem slow to multiply, but those in a very crowded pot come up very thickly indeed, though they either don't flower, or flower very close to the surface.
I hope the absorption thing is an old gardener's tale because there were lots of littles in the ones I put in the bucket. They had formed around bulbs that must have been potted last year into 10cm deep narrow pots, about half-way down.
As you've mentioned lilies: have you grown L mackliniae? I've just got one, have ditheringly put it into a pot, and parked it in a half-and-half position. I'm suspecting I'll have to create a 'steady damp' garden soon!

Vetivert
I have only just acquired lilium mackliniae so can't say how it will do yet. I sowed some seed of Lilium duchatrei I collected from my own bulb last summer, and it is coming up like cress. Now if only I can get them to flowering size.

Brian

Things to watch for...Thank you, Brian. In my 'coming up' set, I've Veltheimia and Hippeastrum. Unjustifiably confident - just because the Clivias made it! (Not flowering yet. Plenty of time for an oops.)