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Little white bells
48
By Annie Bullen, a nurserywoman
and gardening journalist living in
north Hampshire
Annie Bullen treads gently among the season’s snowdrops
It lifts my heart at this time of the year to
see snowdrops, thrusting their pure white
bells through the often iron-hard
February ground. Nothing short of
miraculous, I think, although I regard them
more as a wintertime pleasure than a
harbinger of spring.
We all love the snowdrop, surrounding
it with sentiment and legend, giving it
regional names such as snowpiercer, Mary’s
taper, Mary’s bell and February Fair Maid.
In many places snowdrops are used to mark
Candlemas (2 February) the Catholic feast
of the purification of the Virgin Mary, when
great bunches are picked for decoration. But
in some parts of the country, in Victorian
A display of snowdrops, aconites
and grass at Brandy Mount
times, they were regarded warily, because of
the resemblance of the white flower to a
corpse wrapped in a shroud: bringing
snowdrops into the house was said to be
unlucky.
Although snowdrops have naturalised
widely along grassy verges, woodland edges
and country lanes, they are not native to
Britain, but were brought here sometime in
the 16th century from central and southern
Europe, Asiatic Turkey and the Caucasus.
We’re lucky in Hampshire and Wiltshire to
have two gardens noted for their snowdrops.
Plantsman Michael Baron holds one of the
NCCPG national collections of snowdrops
(Galanthus) at his home, Brandy Mount, in
Alresford, while Heale Garden near Salisbury
opens in time for visitors to enjoy their
beautiful ‘snowdrop walk’.
We look on the snowdrop as a simple
plant but galanthophiles – those who become
obsessed by these little white flowers – would
be horrified at this horticultural carelessness.
The RHS Plant Finder lists more than 20
species and you can look closely at individual
snowdrops to see the differences. Peer inside
the flower to marvel at the intricacy of the
markings on the ‘cup’, the single or double
cluster of inner petals like a frilly petticoat
under the long skirt of three outer petals.
Some cups have green dots on the petals while
others are gracefully outlined with a delicate
green margin.
Snowdrop collectors go to great lengths to
satisfy their passion. Plantsman Richard Nutt,
who sadly died in 2002, held legendary
‘snowdrop lunches’ in early February, at which
lots of good food and intense focus on all
snowdrops drew like-minded people.
Michael Baron, who enjoyed these
occasions, learnt the importance of
distribution: swapping plants, giving plants to
other enthusiasts, allowing even rare plants to
go to someone else’s garden in order to give
them as wide a chance as possible to survive
and thrive.
‘… they were regarded
warily, because of the
resemblance of the white
flower to a corpse
wrapped in a shroud’