Celebrate spring with Scotland's snowdrop festival

Saturday 2 February 2013

Forget spa days or fancy hotel breaks – if you want to send your spirits soaring take a woodland walk and you'll probably chance upon an endless carpet of brave little snowdrops.

Photograph: Martin Shields

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dave allan

There are 20 or so species of snowdrop (Galanthus) and around 3000 cultivars, each with slightly different shapes, colour and markings. A small band of galanthophiles are keen to identify the subtle differences between these plants, and do this by digging up the tiny bulbs and examining the whole plants closely.

Occasionally, a rare genetic mutation results in an unusual hybrid. This happened recently in a Perthshire garden, the petals of the mutation being golden with yellow markings. The ovary is also yellow – amazing for a normally white snowdrop. The bulb, Galanthus woronowii Elizabeth Harrison, took its name from the owner of the garden and has been formally recognised by a branch of the Royal Horticultural Society.It's unsurprising that some people will go to great expense to acquire a specimen like this, as happened last February during an online auction. Seed supplier Thompson & Morgan paid £725 – the highest price ever for a snowdrop bulb – and is now busily building up stocks. This is typically a slow process, but the company is using micro-propagation methods to speed up the process and hopes to add the variety to its collection before too long. Watch this space.Snowdrop enthusiasts were just as delighted in the 1870s when the Greek botanist and poet TG Orphanides made an equally exciting find: an autumn-flowering snowdrop. He discovered this rarity in the Taigetos mountains in the Peloponnese. He named it Galanthus reginae-olgae in honour of the Greek queen, Olga. If you'd like to extend the flowering period for your snowdrops, this variety is available from Kevock Garden Plants in Midlothian (kevockgarden.co.uk).Apart from a few special varieties, most snowdrops belong to three species: Galanthus plicatus, G elwesii and G nivalis. The first two were introduced during the Victorian plant-hunting craze. G plicatus was brought from the Crimea after the war against Russia in the 1850s. Plicatus means "folded" and describes how the leaves have folds to each side of a silver centre. Arriving 20 years later, G elwesii has broad, sometimes twisted glaucus leaves, but its main selling point is its ability to cope well with dry conditions, so it does well at the foot of established trees.G nivalis is undoubtedly the most common specimen in Scotland. It's not a native, as was once thought, and it's unknown exactly when it was introduced but has been around since mediaeval times. This tough cookie takes whatever the weather throws at it, and don't overlook the faint but delightful honey scent of its flowers. If you have raised beds or a border sloping down to a brick or stone wall, as I do, plant some there to enjoy a whiff whenever you pass.Wherever we grow them in the garden, snowdrops always look their best when planted by the tens of thousands, so the Scottish Snowdrop Festival is the perfect way to enjoy them. Organised by VisitScotland, it's the first major event in this, the Year of Natural Scotland, and runs from today until mid-March.Wherever you live, one of the 50 or so gardens taking part won't be far away. Castle gardens, estates, woodland walks and specialist collections are all open to the public for all or part of the festival. You'll find some of the most interesting collections at Cambo in Fife, Finlaystone estate in Renfrewshire and Dunrobin Castle in Sutherland. For more information, go to visitscotland.comVisit askorganic.co.uk. Email your gardening queries to da@askorganic.co.uk

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Celebrate spring with Scotland's snowdrop festival

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