New Snowdrops for 2015
Our current snowdrop catalogue is on line here.
There couldn’t be more different looking snowdrops than ‘Wasp’ in the foreground above and ‘Diggory’ in the background.
This post includes additional photographs and more detailed descriptions of four of the new snowdrops I am offering for sale in my 2015 Snowdrop Catalogue. The catalogue will be emailed to all my customers in early January, but you can view it now by clicking here. There are four more new snowdrop cultivars offered in the catalogue plus two snowflakes (leucojums), but they are either sold or about to sell out so I decided not to include them. I recommend ordering right away to secure the snowdrops you want. For entertaining descriptions of many of the remaining varieties offered, click here.
Most of the information about the snowdrops profiled below comes from the indispensable Snowdrops: A Monograph of Cultivated Galanthus by Matt Bishop, Aaron Davis, and John Grimshaw (2006 Griffin Press)( called Snowdrops below).
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 to the US only. 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.
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Galanthus plicatus ‘Diggory’
There is no other snowdrop that looks like ‘Diggory’ so if you think all snowdrops look alike this is the one for you. The squared-off pear-shaped flowers with seersucker outers and the large green inner mark visible even when the flower is closed, make ‘Diggory’ recognizable anywhere. The blooms resemble miniature hot air balloons hanging on tiny shepherd’s crooks, absolutely charming. The unique look is further enhanced by the pleated leaves visible in the photo below and characteristic of a Crimean snowdrop, G. plicatus.
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‘Diggory’s’ leaves with their elegant side pleats are also very attractive.
‘Diggory’ is a relatively new snowdrop. It was found in a naturalized stand of G. plicatus in 1993 by two well known British galanthophiles and first exhibited in 1998 when it received a commendation. The name was chosen to memorialize the son of one of the discoverers. When Avon Bulbs in England asked its customers to name their favorite snowdrops, ‘Diggory’ ranked number 4 out of the 1,000 or more snowdrops in cultivation.
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‘Blonde Inge’ is a very desirable yellow-marked snowdrop.
‘Blonde Inge’ is unusual because the lovely yellow markings on its inner segments are combined with a green ovary (the little cap above the flower). It is a cultivar of the common snowdrop, G. nivalis, and as such tolerates a wide variety of garden conditions. It builds up quickly and is very striking in a clump as you can see in the photo below.
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‘Blonde Inge’ grows rapidly to form an impressive clump.
‘Blonde Inge’ was discovered in 1977 in a cemetery near Cologne, Germany, and introduced by Nicholas Top to the UK in 1993. The name came from the lyrics of a German foxtrot, which you can hear by clicking here.
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‘Wasp’ has long, elegant outer segments.
Matt Bishop calls ‘Wasp’ an aptly named snowdrop, and I have to agree. The very long and narrow outer segments stick out at an angle like wings and the tubular inner segments are striped to resemble a thorax. ‘Wasp’ flies around on its long pedicel in the slightest breeze completing the insect-like effect. This charming and unique snowdrop caused a sensation among UK galanthophiles when it was first introduced in the late 1990s. It was discovered in 1995 by British snowdrop enthusiast Veronica Cross at Sutton Court.
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‘Walrus’ is a very uniform double snowdrop considering how unusual it looks.
Snowdrops calls ‘Walrus’ “one of the greatest eccentrics of the snowdrop world”, but despite this it is not wild looking like ‘Blewbury Tart’ but instead a very regularly formed double. As you can see in the photo above, its ‘tusks’ are the three very long, linear, mostly green outer segments. They surround a lovely rosette whose segments curve outward to look like a green rose.
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Maybe my expanding clump of ‘Walrus’ will one day look like this photo taken by Alan Street of Avon Bulbs.
‘Walrus’ is a cultivar of the common snowdrop, G. nivalis, and tolerates a wide variety of conditions. It is vigorous and multiplies well in the garden. It was selected in the 1960s by noted galanthophile Oliver Wyatt at Maidwell Hall in Northamptonshire, England. ‘Walrus’ ranked number 12 on the list of favorite snowdrops of UK gardeners.
Carolyn
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CAROLYN'S SHADE GARDENS 
December 9, 2014 at 5:07 pm
I will check out the catalog ….. this year I was hoping to get a unusual one and one that blooms in fall.
December 9, 2014 at 5:25 pm
Donna, check it out soon because things are selling out. Thanks, Carolyn
December 9, 2014 at 10:49 pm
Lovely! The Snowdrops give us hope. 🙂
December 10, 2014 at 10:32 am
Beth, Yes, and the fall-blooming ones ease me into winter while the winter-blooming ones get through me to spring. Carolyn
December 10, 2014 at 4:23 pm
Ooo, I love the look of Diggory! Walrus is so pretty, too, though it looks like the doubled floret is hard to see from above.
December 10, 2014 at 4:55 pm
Indie, Diggory is so pretty. Actually I think Walrus is just as interesting from the top because you can see the tusks at their full length which is 3x the inner petals. Carolyn
December 10, 2014 at 7:24 pm
Nice selections this year Carolyn. BTW, I might be down at my cousin’s house for Christmas this year. Hopefully for a week. It depends on weather. Need a change of scenery, boy is it bland here in the Falls. Rain…
December 10, 2014 at 7:26 pm
Oh, I did not get the email for your post. I have it marked as instantly too. I will have to unsubscribe and subscribe again.
December 10, 2014 at 10:05 pm
I wonder how many people get unsubscribed from our blogs and never know it. Kind of frustrating.
December 10, 2014 at 10:07 pm
Donna, the weather here has been horrible, the worst I can remember. Gray and overcast every day with cold and rain, rain, rain. I wouldn’t come here to escape your weather. Carolyn
December 13, 2014 at 10:30 pm
Carolyn, you do a good job showing the differences between the various snowdrops. I can see hows a collector can get hooked!
December 14, 2014 at 9:20 am
Deb, I am certainly hooked so that makes it easier to communicate it to others :-). Carolyn
December 21, 2014 at 1:03 pm
Hi, Carolyn, I recently found your site and am very interested in some of your snowdrops, especially as I just started a few new shade beds. I do not like to order things online, since my email has been hacked and I am wary of putting financial information online. Would it be possible for me to phone you and give you my credit card number by phone?
The plants that I am interested in are: Flore Pleno- 3 plants nivala Viridapice- 2 Ophelia-1 White Dream- 2 Blewbury Tart- 1
By the way, I am a graduate of Baldwin School!
Thanks, Marilyn Sandau
On Tue, Dec 9, 2014 at 1:23 PM, CAROLYN’S SHADE GARDENS wrote:
> Carolyn @ Carolyns Shade Gardens posted: “The 2015 Snowdrop Catalogue, > featuring snowdrops and other winter interest plants like cyclamen and > hellebores, is on the sidebar, and we are taking orders. To access the > catalogue, please click here. There couldn’t be more different looking > snowdrops t”
December 22, 2014 at 2:33 pm
Marilyn, I don’t take orders on line. Please send me an email with your order as directed in the catalogue,no financial information is required, and I will tell you how to proceed from there. Great to hear from a fellow Baldwin alumna. Carolyn