Winter drifts

Ursula Buchan

Wednesday, 18th February 2009

What is it with snowdrops? Why do people make so much fuss about them, when they are so small and relatively insignificant?

What is it with snowdrops? Why do people make so much fuss about them, when they are so small and relatively insignificant? These are questions that mystify people each February, as they view yet more images in newspapers or gardening magazines of chilly, brilliant white, droopy flowers on short stalks.

I have, in the past, been equally stumped. However, gradually, two or three positive aspects of snowdrops have dawned on me, not all of which have anything to do with the flowers themselves. The first thing to note is that they flower (in the public mind, at least) mainly in January and February when there is not much else flowering (in the public mind, at least). Once newspapers took to printing colour images, and gardening magazines to publishing winter issues, there was always going to be a considerable, and sometimes undue, emphasis on flowers which, though individually insignificant, were certainly hardy and dependable and easily aggregated into large-scale drifts. As garden photography has developed in the last 20 years, so has the extraordinarily intimate nature of the images photographers capture and reproduce; snowdrops, being small, delicate and sometimes intricately marked, undoubtedly benefit from such close attention.

Moreover, the owners of a number of large country gardens, finding themselves with the need to encourage more visitors, have discovered that long-established drifts of Galanthus nivalis and G. ‘Atkinsii’ in woodland and borders, can become a popular draw with coach parties, thankful to have somewhere to go in late winter. Each year, more and more gardens open especially in February to show off snowdrops and aconites and, with luck, a few other winter-flowerers as well.

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