Snowdrops escaping from gardens – in the UK and USA

A friend in England has sent me this lovely picture of some snowdrops which she came across – let’s just say somewhere in eastern England. For while most snowdrop enthusiasts have impeccable ethics, such is the lure of the snowdrop these days that there are one or two fanatics who, if I gave the location, would be down there with a trowel in no time.

This mossy ditch is on a rather run down country estate where the huge house is falling into disrepair. Snowdrops have, at some point over the last few hundred years, been discarded from the garden – that is to say, thrown over the fence – and have settled down comfortably alongside the road and hybridised with each other to create a fascinating range of types: tall and short, early and late, large-flowered and small and with a wide variation of foliage and flower shapes.

And they’ve found their way into this ditch, and into a copse nearby, where they’ve settled down and spread. They look as if they’re native: but in fact they’re not. First found in the wild in Britain in 1778, the New Atlas of the British Flora (one of the most important books on the British flora ever published, I might say!) confirms that they’re not native. (And no, you invasive nuts, they never get out of hand.)

My friend the artist John Morley has over 300 different snowdrops in his garden in Norfolk, England. No, not 30 – three hundred. And he publishes a wonderful snowdrop catalog (UK only) which every year features one of his snowdrop images on its cover. So there are a lot of them and almost all have white flowers with green markings. Distinguishing one from another can be an esoteric business. Many gardeners think snowdrop-nuts are exactly that – nuts.

But the snowdrop is a resilient little bulb – as long as it doesn’t dry out in the summer when it’s dormant. And it settles down happily in the British countryside when it escapes from gardens and then slowly spreads. And when a few different types grow together and hybridize with each other over the decades, excellent garden plants can turn up. It happens in gardens, it happens in old cemeteries, and it happens in ditches.

It also happens here in Pennsylvania where I was startled to find a mass of naturalised snowdrops last year. I’ll get back to that here next month when they’ll be in flower again. (Yes, Brits… snowdrops at their peak in April.)

And if you come across snowdrops in the wild – don’t dig them up and plant them in  your garden, leave them for others to enjoy. And please don’t wipe them out just because they’re not native.

Comments

[Ellis Hollow]

Feast or famine. See recent post at Human Flower Project about Hungary having to ban traditional Galanthus picking.

http://www.humanflowerproject.com/index.php/weblog/hovirag_hungarys_hot_snowdrop/

[Graham Rice]

Thanks for that link, Craig. It's a shame when rural traditions come under pressure from modern life - but those snowdrops can't just be allowed to vanish. As I mentioned in a previous post, ladyslipper orchids were once reduced to one single plant in Britain through overcollecting.

By the way: I'm not sure the snowdrop in the story on the Human Flower Project page is actually Galanthus nivalis.

[Mr Hedgecutter]

Its a shame. It is such a lovely plant. But as has been said they are a durable plant and will no doubt prosper.

[Kathy]

The Temple Nursery in Trumansburg, NY is the closest you'll get to Morley's catalog in the U.S. Hitch Lyman ships them "in the green."