A rather obvious favourite but rightfully so. When the snowdrops emerge in February you can’t fail but have your spirits lifted. They’re such sweet visitors. Diminutive with neat upright foliage and sweet nodding heads once you notice one you seem to see them everywhere at the foot of hedgerow or on the top of a bank.
Our current house has snowdrops planted along the hedge screening the pathway to the front door by a previous owner. They spend all day in complete shade their vigour is not diminished by my bouts of vigorous but intermittent weeding in the summer months.
I like to see snowdrops in naturalised planting such as you’d find them in a woodland. This could be at the base of a tree or hedge. Good companions are other shade loving plants with foliage that hasn’t yet emerged when the snowdrops are flowering such as like hostas and ferns. The clump will grow as little new bulbs grow out from the original ones and after time you can lift the whole clump, break them into smaller clumps and space them out again. It’s easy to forget that they are theres leeping under the gorund though in the summer months so make sure you plant them in a space that you are happy to leave bare or undisturbed when they are not around.
There is a mind boggling number of varieties of snowdrop or Galanthus to use the latin genus name meaning ‘milk flower’. Being a lady of simple pleasures I like the commonly found Galanthus nivalis which is generally considered our native variety. I think that a good mulch makes the bulbs stand out most effectively as opposed to planting through grass where, for me, they become a little lost.
If you don’t have any why not order some right now? You can buy them as bulbs in the autumn or a safer bet for good establishment is to order what is referred to as bulbs ‘in the green’ where the bulb and plant is lifted in its peak growing season for you to tuck straight into the shady new home you have selected. Stick them in the ground and you’ll be thanking yourself for years to come- that first sign that winter is letting go of its grip and spring is round the corner.