Our Snowdrop Collection

Our annual Snowdrop Festival opens on 9 January 2026 and runs till mid March. This is the time to see hundreds of different species and varieties growing freely in the beds and borders of our 10 acre edge of Dartmoor garden. Some are single specimens, some small clumps, others in small to large drifts. All are beautiful – albeit, with some, rather different to the normal idea of gently nodding white “Fair maids of February”.

Despite our festival running from Jan to March our snowdrop season actually starts in early autumn with the first flowers of Galanthus peshmanii ‘Green Flight’ appearing in late September. We have to keep this Mediterranean species under cover but the increasing number of species and varieties that follow are all grown in the open garden.

G. reginae-olgae, an autumn flowering Mediterranean species, can be seen in the form of a number of varieties and the reginae-olgae subspecies, the latter proffering some dappled shade, a micro climate of which we have no shortage. Also carrying the torch until Christmas are a good number of the autumn flowering varieties of the giant snowdrop, G. elwesii, including the lovely ‘Smaragdsplitter’, with green teardrops on the outer petals, and the classically shaped G.e. var. monostictus.

Although individual species and varieties may only be in flower for a few weeks the sequential blooming ensures that there will always be a snowdrop on display during the first three of the nearly six month of the season at The Garden House. Post Christmas, the display ramps up as increasing numbers of the 350 species, subspecies and cultivars begin their individual seasons. Initial stars include the magnificent G..elwesii ‘Fly Fishing’, whose elongated pedicels ensure the flowers really do dance in the wind. For sheer symmetry it’s hard to beat the double G. e.‘Godfrey Owen’ with its large precise segments and good bulking up habit. Also early to bloom in the New Year and making good sized clumps is G.e.’Mrs McNamara’ with a classically elegant flower form.

There are many wonderful snowdrops with inverse green markings (transferred to the outer segments). The best among the collection and coming into prominence in later January is the prolific
favourite G. ‘Trumps’, a great legacy from Matt Bishop who saw its potential.

By February the larger drifts are beginning to build throughout the garden, with colonies of G. ‘S.Arnott’ providing sheets of white in the outer reaches of our ten acres, joined by smaller patches of G.woronowii on the Magic Circle banks, and large clumps of G. ‘Greenfinch’ on our South boundary. This is also the time when many of the species and the weird and wonderful begin their displays.

Part of our collection was rescued from the garden of the late Colin Mason and these include several cultivars of G.’JMDS’ from the Ardennes, and we are hoping to find out more about their origins. There are also very significant colonies of G. ikariae, G. rizehensis, and G. lagedechianus. Generally these have settled in and are already naturalising.

We have a good number of different ‘yellows’, with yellow ovaries and/or markings. G.plicatus ‘Wendy’s Gold’ is well established and G. x ‘Primrose Warburg’ is showing definite promise of increasing to good sized clumps. ‘Difficult’ yellows here include G. nivalis ‘Ecusson d’Or’ (Sandersii Group), with yellow markings on the apex of its outers. It seems to be establishing better in open, good light. There are a number of newer yellow cultivars such as G. ‘Das Gelb von Ei’ (‘Egg Yolk’) which require time to prove their ability. The only double yellow in the collection is G. nivalis ‘Lady Elphinstone’ which is notoriously slow to increase.

Among the weird are the twisted petals of G. ‘Walrus’ and the viridescent snowdrops, where white has heavily turned to green in the outer petals. G.gracilis ‘Andrea’s Fault’ and G.elwesii ‘Rosemary Burnham’ are both doing well. Equally odd are the upturned flowers of G, ‘Starling’, which flaunt their double blooms at the sky during emergence. Elegant and well formed this is just one of the many doubles in the collection.

The season continues into March, though the actual last to come into flower is a race between G.plicatus ‘Percy Picton’, the flaring petals of G. krasnovii or the pure white flowers of G. ‘Peroxide Blonde’.

So ends the season – to be resumed again next autumn for another six month’s display