Winter Blooms -- Snowdrops

Galanthophiles -- a British word for gardeners even more obsessed with snowdrops than I.

Over the years I've planted hundreds of snowdrops around the garden, clustered under trees, lining the stone staircase from the street to the front door, in the hopes that they will naturalize throughout the garden.  The earliest to bloom, and still my favorite remain two tiny clusters by the mailbox, planted by a previous owner decades ago.

In early December, the first clump blooms, just three flowers that have not multiplied in all the years we have lived here.  I'm afraid to divide them in case they don't return.  I think they must be Galanthus ‘Potter’s Prelude’, the only fall blooming one I can find listed.  

There is a few weeks interlude until the next clump begins to flower.  I think these must be Galanthus elwesii which are slightly earlier and larger than the common snowdrop, Galanthus nivalis. 

Although hideously expensive, I keep meaning to splurge on other earlier flowering cultivars such as ‘S. Arnott’, and ‘Atkinsii’.  For now, I have to wait until late February to March when the common snowdrop (Galanthus nivalis) carpets the ground with wonderful honey-scented white flowers, a signal that winter is ending.  Snowdrops grow in full sun to full shade and are usually not picky about soil. Deer resistant and summer dormant.

The best way to buy snowdrops is ‘in the green’ (as they say in the snowdrop world), rather than as bulbs in the fall.  If you can find them for sale in the spring is not only the best way to insure vigorous healthy plants, you will also be able to enjoy the blooms immediately as most plants will be flowering when you receive them.