GARDENS
After rushing around in late summer, propping up perennials, pinning down climbers and mowing the ever-growing grass, January and February look like a blessed reprieve to us gardeners. They are the promised time of relaxation and reading, an opportunity to take stock from the comfort of a warm armchair.
Of course, it never works like that. Too long on the sofa makes a back ache more than turning compost, and reading for hours about plants is like watching baking programmes while hungry. Thank heavens then for snowdrops, the true winter flower, and an excuse to pull hats down tight and stamp out into the bitter morning.
Snowdrops belong to the genus Galanthus; the naturalised species is Galanthus nivalis. Its arrival on these islands from central and southern Europe is unrecorded, though it may have come with the Romans. It was certainly familiar to John Gerard, who included the snowdrop in Britain's first ever gardening book, writing in the Herball of 1597 that it 'flowereth at the beginning of Januarie'. In the mid-19th century it was joined by Galanthus plicatus, carried here as bulbs by soldiers returning from the Crimean War. Many had spent the winter under bombardment outside the besieged city of Sevastopol and clung to the flowers that bloomed in the mud of their frozen trenches as reminders of life.
The final piece of our snowdrop puzzle was added in 1874 when botanist Henry John Elwes brought back the giant snowdrop, Galanthus elwesii, from the Caucasus Mountains. While another 17 species have so far been discovered, including G. woronowii, which happily spreads in our climate, it is these three that contribute most of the genetic material to the hundreds of varieties available today. Snowdrops are undoubtably best seen en masse in the deciduous woodlands they love. The forest floor in January can be a bleak sight, but add snowdrops and that all changes. Mossy logs become as cheerful as driftwood in the garden of a coastal cottage and old leaves are lifted by clumps of new foliage in the most tasteful pewter-green. The flowers may only be six inches tall, but they fill the wood with life.
Churchyards are another place to watch the little flowers, and often come with benches for those who like the winter sun that lifts their honey fragrance. We have the Victorians to thank for planting snowdrops on graves, as well as ants for moving their seeds along paths and under trees. We can also thank the Victorians for the word 'Galanthophile', which means snowdrop lover. It describes the person for whom 'a trip to see the snowdrops' could mean a drive of C) 200 miles; the believer who spends £25, £50 or £100 on a ra
