At this time of year it is almost obligatory to write something about Snowdrops. look around you: every magazine and newspaper is doing it so it would seem a bit churlish for this blog not to join in.
Snowdrops (or Galanthus nivalis if you wish to be formal) are about the first thing to flower each year, occasionally pipped by Aconites, and very welcome they are. Over the years we have planted hundreds and hundreds round here – to be perfectly honest my wife has planted most of them – and we keep on doing it. Near to our house is a wall that formerly enclosed a long defunct vegetable garden, just by this wall is an old rubbish heap where, many years ago, the gardeners dumped all the debris. It is mostly nettles with bits of old terracotta and some rusting gates. At one time some of this rubbish must have contained a few snowdrop bulbs which have now spread into a thick carpet of tiny White flowers.
However, snowdrops need dividing as if they become too congested they become reluctant to flower so, with the permission of the owner, we have been doing precisely that: thinning out the bigger clumps and rehoming the bulbs.
They seem to sneak up on us each year, at the beginning of January there is nothing visible. Then, a week or so later, you can find the little shoots appearing if you scrubble around amongst the long grass. Then the first sign you see of the flowers is always when they are caught in the headlights as we drive in and out.
Finally, by now, they are unashamedly flowering away like billy-ho.
Some people become obsessed with snowdrops and spend many happy hours lying on the cold ground with magnifying glasses investigating the minor differences in green fringing that exists between one variety and another. As one enthusiast once told me “Galanthophilia is all about sticking your bum in the air and your nose to the ground!”. That said it can be lucrative – a single bulb of Galanthus plicatus E.A. Bowles Went for over £300 on eBay the other day and some collectors have woken up to find their whole collection burgled.
Personally I like to keep things simple and stick with the basic variety.
But lots of them.
