snowdrops

The snowdrops are well above ground now, still in tight bud but I can see the glint of white.  I love snowdrops and have planted a lot over the years, mostly the common sort Galanthus nivalis.  That is partly because this is a large and wild garden in which tiny treasures get lost, and I couldn't afford to plant the unusual named varieties in the quantities that would be required to make an impact.  However, it's mainly that I like the common ones.  Their size and scale look right here, and I don't get that excited by a green spot more or less.

A great deal gets said and written about the right time to plant or move snowdrops.  Planting in the green is recommended, when they are in active growth, which means they are offered for sale from now until the end of February as freshly dug bulbs, but some experts say that it stresses the plants to damage their roots at this time, and that the ideal time to disturb them would be in late August when they were first starting into growth.  The obvious practical difficulty with moving them then is that nothing remains above ground to tell you where on earth they are, or what other bulbous treasures might be lurking below.  At least in February you can see clearly what is going on.  Lady Skelmersdale, owner of the excellent specialist small bulb supplier Broadleigh Bulbs explained in an RHS lecture she gave at Writtle College a few years ago why buying bags of dried out snowdrop bulbs in autumn is not a good idea.  They hate drying out, she said, and by the time you buy them they may already be dead.

I have planted snowdrops in the lower part of the garden, and, after some soul searching, in the wood.  The wood though very small is presumed ancient, and contains a mixture of ground flora characteristic of wet alder woodland, including opposite leaved golden saxifrage.  Snowdrops, which were probably introduced to the UK and are so are not part of the native flora, don't form part of that natural mix.  But they are not too competitive and won't hybridise with any of the existing wild plants.  I would never plant Spanish bluebells anywhere in the garden given that the British sort grow in the wood.  The aesthetic desire for a snowdrop woodland walk won out.  It is interesting watching how bulbs grow in there.  The bluebells make dense stands in some places and don't grow at all in others, presumably reflecting local variations in moisture or soil or some aspect of the conditions.  The snowdrops are similarly picky, so I plant thinly into new areas, and then the following season bulk up the planting in the bits where I can see they are doing well.  My contibution to the great debate over when to plant them is to advise that if you are planting them in an area where you already have some snowdrops then leave planting more until the display from the existing ones is going over.  The newly planted ones tend to flop and start dying down prematurely, which detracts from the overall appearance, if the established ones haven't finished flowering.  Once they have started to flop too it doesn't make any difference.

In the interests of fairness, having mentioned Broadleigh I should also mention Avon Bulbs, my other favourite supplier of top quality small bulbs.  They are not the cheapest, but their plants are very good and they list some interesting and unusual things.  For common snowdrops I don't use either of them, but one of the bulk suppliers who advertise in the backs of the gardening magazines.