CAROLYN'S SHADE GARDENS

Last February, my husband Michael and I traveled to England to visit gardens and meet famous galanthophiles.  One of the most famous is John Morley of the legendary nursery North Green Snowdrops.  North Green has named snowdrops that are iconic in the galanthus world, including ‘Trumps’, ‘Comet’, ‘Mrs. Macnamara’, ‘Three Ships’, and ‘Remember, Remember’.   John recently introduced the golden yellow ‘Mother Goose’, which immediately topped my acquisition list.

Nursery News:  Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a retail nursery located in Bryn Mawr, PA, specializing in showy, colorful, and unusual plants for shade.  The only plants that we ship are snowdrops within the US.  For catalogues and announcements of local events, please send your full name, mailing address, and cell number to carolyn@carolynsshadegardens.com and indicate whether you are mail order only.  Click here to get to the home page of our website for catalogues and information about our nursery and to subscribe to our blog.

The lovely Morley home

.  As the snow falls, John Morley gamely points out snowdrops in the garden at North Green.

On a trip where we never saw the sun and it rained or snowed every day, our visit to North Green stood out as the coldest day of the two weeks we were in England.  North Green is located in Beccles on the east coast of England where the land juts out to receive icy blasts from the North Sea. As we toured the garden, Arctic wind blew the snow sideways, and at least half my photos were out-of-focus as the snowdrops swayed.  However, we persevered and saw many snowdrops I had only read about before, which I want to share with you.

.‘Walter Fish’

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‘Yaffle’

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‘Trumps’ found in the North Green garden by Matt Bishop.

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‘Golden Fleece’, the first yellow ‘Trym’, introduced by Joe Sharman at Monksilver Nursery, and an eBay record setter at £1,390 for one plant.  Yellow snowdrops often look olive in England, to me anyway, rather than the bright yellow they display in the US due to our sunny weather.

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‘Green Comet’ originated in the garden at North Green and was named for its large flowers, resembling ‘Comet’, and its lettuce green leaves, usually in threes as you can see in the photo.

.‘Fieldgate Prelude’

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‘Green of Hearts’ originated at North Green and is distinguished from ‘Trumps’ by its darker green and more heart-shaped markings.

.A curiosity that has not been introduced, “747 Short Leaf” has, of course, very short leaves.  This photo also shows the icy snow that was falling during our visit!

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‘Jubilee Green’ with its bright green leaves was named to commemorate North Green’s 25th year in business.

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‘Ray Cobb’, another yellow looking quite olive.

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‘Fenstead End’

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Matt Bishop named this snowdrop ‘Neckless Wonder’ because it has no pedicel attaching it to the scape.

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Halfway through the tour, when I was the coldest I had ever been, John invited us into his warm and cheery home for some very welcome tea.  He rated us very keen galanthophiles indeed when we were eager to continue the tour after tea.

Carolyn

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