Snowdrops are so hyped up this year that the clickbait on the BBC News website’s most viewed article on Saturday morning was Are you suffering from galanthomania?. Anything that sounds like an ailment evidently has the whole of Britain (minus those aware that a galanthus is a snowdrop) clicking away to find out if they have the symptoms. Well, it is winter.
I know it’s not going to be long till they’re here. I’ve seen the advanced guard, including some in Manchester City Centre yesterday, scattered in amongst the earliest crocuses. Their white tips were still sheathed in greenery, but I’d know them anywhere. Continue reading “Rather Impatiently Awaiting Snowdrops”
In January, dogwood steals the show in Harlow Carr’s Winter Walk
We set off for Harrogate on a whim, inspired by the weather forecast, and booked into a hotel within walking distance from the RHS’s most northerly garden, Harlow Carr, a favourite haunt. The idea was to wake up next morning to find an artistic covering of snow or a hard frost – the added winter garden ingredients only nature can provide.
The forecast had been an exaggeration but, luckily, it turns out that a winter wonderland doesn’t need snow: it can cloak itself just as wonderfully in reds, oranges, browns and greens.
Early bulbs are starting to appear, including these snowdrops (Galanthus elwesii ‘Mrs Macnamara’).
We were too early to see the thousands of snowdrops, cyclamen, irises and eranthis hyemalis that will be at their peak in February and March. A small number of the advance guard could be spotted in flower in the woods, along the Winter Walk or sheltered in the glasshouse, giving a hint of the pleasure to come. But if you find yourself wondering whether a winter garden really has anything much of interest to offer in January, other than peace, you’ll find plant after plant lining up as if to say: ‘You misjudged me. You doubted there would be colour.’
I rarely resist bending down to look inside a double snowdrop. Like most aspects of gardening, it’s hard on the knees, but uplifting to the soul.
The hurried passerby thinks all snowdrops are the same. It’s only by sparing those few extra moments to look closer that we start to appreciate nature’s subtleties.
If you’re looking for a more quirky woodland walk in snowdrop season, and you don’t mind the odd, short climb, try visiting the Painswick Rococo Garden. It’s all about sweeping vistas, focal points and follies. Continue reading “Snowdrop season at the Painswick Rococo Garden”
Susan Rushton 