Snowdrop Season

Snowdrop Season

February is a positive month. The days are lengthening, and many dormant plants begin their annual resurrection like Persephone returning from Hades. Buds plumping on deciduous trees reveal glimpses of the pigments of life, and the blackbird from the swaying cypress top now sings his liquid phrases at first light.

All this, and the greatest spectacle in the gardening year, the flowering of spring, is in the offing. The prelude to the event comes in winter with nodding snowdrops.

Some think of the snowdrop as the precocious child of spring, but I view them as the last flower of winter. Their winter anthesis has earned them the common name pierce-neige (snow piercer) in French. This epithet describes how they arise through frozen earth and snow to bloom in winter woodlands. I adore the Swiss name for the snowdrop, Amselblumli or ‘blackbird flower’, called so because the flowers appear when the blackbird starts singing again.

Snowdrops (Galanthus)

There are over 19 snowdrop species in the genus Galanthus in the wild, with many more named cultivated varieties. Did you know that many snowdrops are scented? On still, sunny days you can catch their delicious honey scent.

E. A. Bowles of Myddelton House, the great early twentieth-century plantsman and garden writer, boasted of having snowdrops in bloom in his Enfield garden from October until March. However, the main flowering window for snowdrops is January to March.

The most important species for gardeners are Galanthus nivalis, Galanthus elwesii, and Galanthus plicatus. This triumvirate of forms in British gardens has resulted in many interesting hybrids. The number of cultivars continues to increase year-on-year as new forms are bred and selected by enthusiasts and growers.

The common snowdrop

The most familiar species, Galanthus nivalis, the common snowdrop, is the flower that carpets our woodlands, church yards, and old gardens with swathes of white. Its scientific name means ‘milk flower of the snow’.

There has been much debate about whether or not snowdrops are native to Britain. You will certainly find them growing in the wild, but most of these ‘wild’ snowdrops have escaped from churchyards and gardens. Ants help spread snowdrops. The seeds have an oil-rich structure called an elaisome, which attracts ants. The ants take the seeds back to their nests, where they consume the elaisome, and then discard the seeds, helping disperse them.

Galanthus nivalis is native to a large area of Europe, from Spain in the west, all the way eastwards in a broad swathe through to Ukraine.

In Britain, the earliest written reference to snowdrops is as a garden plant in Gerard’s The Herball, or General Historie of Plantes of 1597, whereas the earliest record of snowdrops growing in the wild dates from around 1778.

The common snowdrop has long been associated with the church festival of Candlemas, where it was often used to decorate churches during the celebration. In gardens, the double form of the common snowdrop, Galanthus nivalis ‘Flore Pleno’, with massed petals resembling a ballerina’s tutu, is the most widely encountered fancy variety.

The giant snowdrop

Galanthus elwesii, the giant snowdrop, has wide glaucous leaves and bears numerous graceful white blooms nodding on long stems. The botanist, entomologist, and traveller Henry John Elwes discovered this species during his 1874 collecting trip to Türkiye. It has a natural range from SE. Europe to Türkiye and SW Ukraine.

The pleated snowdrop

Galanthus plicatus, the pleated, or Crimean snowdrop. It is indigenous to northern Türkiye, Romania, and the Crimea.

This species has attractive broad leaves with a delicate grey surface bloom. The young leaves have distinctive plication (folding) of the leaf margin. This folding results in ‘ghost’ folding marks on the mature names, giving it its popular name, the pleated snowdrop.

Galanthus plicatus became popular in Britain following the Crimean war of the 1850s. British soldiers were amazed to see snowdrops carpeting the battlefields after the harsh winter, and some took the bulbs with them when they returned home. It is strange to think that the snowdrop was the Victorian equivalent of Flanders poppy.

Dear galanthophile…

Every year the media reports with mock outrage the fantastic price achieved by the sale of a rare snowdrop bulb. In 2022 a new snowdrop, Galanthus plicatus ‘Golden Tears’, sold for the record-breaking sum of £1,850 on eBay. This impressive sum is pecuniary proof of the passion that some gardeners harbour for rare snowdrops.

Snowdrop addiction is not a recent trend. Mr Bowles was the first person to use the term ‘galanthophile’ to describe dedicated snowdrop lovers, addressing a friend in a letter as, ‘Dear galanthophile…’

A visit to Myddelton House provided me with further insight into Mr Bowles and snowdrop-mania. Bryan Hewitt, gardener and historian, worked at Myddelton House Gardens for 34 years before leaving in July 2021. Author of a biography of the great gardener, Bryan told me “E. A. Bowles of Myddelton House was the authority on them and labelled his collection with ‘codes’ so that only he and his head Gardener, Mr Alfred Swatton, knew what they were, to discourage theft. It’s how the collectors [of today] do it too!”.

Does Bryan consider himself a Galanthophile? “At Myddelton House we grew around 25 different forms outside the reconstructed Peach House”, Bryan tells me. “I can’t say I am into snowdrops,” he admits. “I had one named after me about 11 years ago, it was discovered growing in the Alpine meadow at Myddleton House by a superb plantsman…Mike Myers (not the actor)”, he says laughing.

I was intrigued. How do you get a snowdrop named after you? “The Snowdrop was passed on to THE great authority on Galanthus, Mr Joe Sharman who runs Monksilver Nursery in Cambridgeshire. He knew that I had worked at Myddelton House gardens for 24 years at the time… so he thought he would honour me with naming the new snowdrop Galanthus nivalis (Poculiformis Group) ‘Bryan Hewitt’. It’s an unusual form in that it has no green parts, it’s all -white!”.

‘Snowdrop immortal’

It must be a great honour to be recognised with your own snowdrop. I wondered if there might be any perks to having a snowdrop named after you. Brian replied, ‘shortly after it was named after me Avon Bulbs in Somerset invited me and 25 other people so honoured to an ‘Immortals’ Tea Party at a church hall near their nursery to celebrate our being immortalised by having a snowdrop plant named after us!” Did he enjoy the party? “It was really a lovely thing to do! It made the Daily Telegraph!”.

Intrigued, I wondered if Bryan grows his eponymous snowdrop. “I don’t collect them myself. I just have a few common Galanthus nivalis forms in shade in my front garden. Single flowering bulbs of Galanthus ‘Bryan Hewitt’ will set you back £40! I have tried to grow it in my garden and gave it all the right conditions, but I have had no sign of it… I don’t expect to see it again and I’m certainly not going to grow it again!”.

As a final link to Myddelton House, Bryan added, “my friend Brigadier Parker Bowles is a collector like his Great Uncle ‘Gussie’ [E. A. Bowles]. I sent him a bulb of it just before Christmas to his home in Wiltshire and he sent me a Christmas card thanking me and saying it was ‘the best Christmas present he’d had this year!’.”

Further information:

Myddelton House Gardens, their opening times, and accessibility:

https://www.visitleevalley.org.uk/myddelton-house-gardens

To learn more about the life of E.A. Bowles and his importance as a gardener:

https://www.eabowlessociety.org.uk/

‘The Crocus King’ by Bryan Hewitt (Rockingham Press). ISBN-10 : 1873468474

https://inpressbooks.co.uk/products/the-crocus-king-ea-bowles-of-myddelton-house

An earlier visit to Myddelton House Gardens:

https://www.capitalgardens.co.uk/blog/a-visit-to-myddelton-house-gardens/

For rare snowdrops, visit the website of “Mr Snowdrop” Joe Sharman:

http://www.monksilvernursery.co.uk/