February seems to be on its way to becoming the new March with the way these warm spells sneak in. Today the afternoon high hit 75F (24C) and it was actually a bit unsettling to break a sweat in the garden knowing that the thermometer will drop down to freezing within the next few hours. That could have been a serious concern, but obviously my thoughts on global warming vanished the minute I saw how much the snowdrops had come along. I spent the entire afternoon trimming things, poking around for shoots, and admiring the early birds which had already come into bloom.
Galanthus elwesii, the giant snowdrop. One of the earliest to rear its head in my garden.
There are a lot of snowdrop favorites in this garden and one near the top is Galanthus ‘Godfrey Owen’. He’s a handsome snowdrop, and of course he’s looking exceptional this spring.
Galanthus ‘Godfrey Owen’, rising up fresh and clean amongst the winter wreckage of last season.
Godfrey is special for his doubled outer petals which make a brilliant star when fully open and looked at from above… this is how most sane people admire these tiny little late winter flowers.
‘Godfrey Owen’ from above.
Another snowdrop which also shows some variation from the standard three outer petals, three inners, is ‘Natalie Garton’. She’s a new one to the garden this spring but I wanted to show the interesting inner ‘extras’ which hang down from the middle of some of the flowers. New is always special, so we’ll have to wait for time to tell if this strange inner remains just interesting or slowly becomes a classic. (fyi for the snowdrop nerds, word is that this snowdrop is the same as a similar one named ‘Chris Sanders’. Natalie G is now the accepted name).
Galanthus ‘Natalie Garton’ with her extra inner petals.
Green snowdrops are also a thing. ‘Rosemary Burnham’ is one of the classics and today she was looking fantastic. She’s a Canadian originally and as such is one of a limited number of named North American snowdrops, but her true specialness lies in the solid green wash to her outer petals. The flowers don’t jump out in the garden and are a little on the small size but I think they’re amazing.
Galanthus ‘Rosemary Burnham’ looking great on her first day open.
The majority of the other snowdrops are yet to come, but here’s one last plain old white one.
Galanthus ‘Bill Bishop’ has extra grande flowers on a short plant. Of course it’s one of the favorites.
Keep your fingers crossed for a gentle ride into real spring. The last few years have been on the harsh side as far as late winter flowers go, so I promise that even if 2018 is the most exceptional snowdrop season I’ll try to control myself. I kind of recognize that not everyone is as obsessed with these short little plants and hopefully you won’t have to resort to praying for another tornado to save you from my snowdrop overkill!
sorta like suburbia 