CAROLYN'S SHADE GARDENS

Seeing the emerging green tips appearing in almost every snowdrop location in our garden never gets old.  The anticipation and promise that those tips represent propel me happily through fall garden chores.  In addition, ‘Three Ships’ celebrated the emerging season by “sailing in” almost three weeks early on November 26.

This is part three of a three-part post on the new snowdrops that will be offered in our 2024 Snowdrop Catalogue.  To read part one, click here, and part two, click here.  As usual, the catalogue will be posted on our website in the first half of December.  Meanwhile, this post will give everyone an advance look (sorry, no advance orders) at five more special, new snowdrops that will be available for order in December.  Enjoy!

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 interested in snowdrops.  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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‘Marjorie Brown’ has large, well-rounded flowers and very blue leaves (photo taken at Winterthur 3/2019).

‘Marjorie Brown’ is a G. elwesii cultivar with clear white, large, round, well-proportioned flowers.  It is late-blooming and vigorous, forming large bulbs.  Its leaves are wide with a very distinct bluish tinge compared to other giant snowdrops, G. elwesii.  According to Snowdrops, which calls it “highly garden-worthy” (Snowdrops: A Monograph of Cultivated Galanthus by Matt Bishop, Aaron Davis, and John Grimshaw Timber Press 2006, page 176), Ruby Baker found it in a flower arrangement entered in a March 1987 flower show.  The exhibitor, Marjorie Brown, told Ruby that the flowers were from bulbs purchased in 1958 from Van Tubergen.

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‘Fenstead End’ in a snowstorm at North Green Snowdrops (taken 2/2017)

I first saw ‘Fenstead End’ when I visited John Morely at North Green Snowdrops during a snowstorm in February 2017.  I admired its long, tapering outer segments and bright green coloring, but the flowers weren’t open (to read about that visit, click here).

. ‘Fenstead End’ puts a smile on my face every time I see it (photo taken at the RHS Show 2/2017)

Later that month, at the RHS Show in London, I saw it with its outer segments raised up to reveal the lovely, white-edged bright green skirt underneath (see the flower in the upper left of the photo for the full effect).  I had to have it for my collection!  It was discovered by Charles Grey-Wilson in Fenstead End, Suffolk, in 1987.

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‘Trumpolute’ is rarely offered for sale (photo taken at Anglesey Abbey 2/2023).

‘Trumpolute’ has large, boldly marked and gracefully recurved outer segments.  The bright green outer markings are repeated on the inner segments.  It has the classic pagoda shape of an inverse poculiform snowdrop (all the segments are inners) and resulted from a cross between G. plicatus ‘Trym’ and G. elwesii.  It was found at North Green Snowdrops in 2001 by John Morley who gave it its name because the flowers look like ‘Trumps’ and the leaves are convolute (wrapped around each other, also called supervolute).

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‘Big Eyes’ peer out from between the outer segments (photo from Chris Ireland-Jones).

‘Big Eyes’ has beautifully rounded, balloon-like flowers, reminding me of one of my favorites, ‘Melanie Broughton’.  Because the outers are spoon-shaped with long claws (claws attach the outer segments to the ovary), you can see the two large eyes looking out with the down-turned mouth below. 

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‘Big Eyes’ (photo from Chris Ireland-Jones)

When my dear friend Alan Street saw it for the first time he proclaimed “what big eyes you have!” just like Little Red Riding Hood and so it was named.  It is a hybrid between the common snowdrop, G. nivalis, and the Crimean snowdrop, G. plicatus.  Alan found it in a naturalized colony in Berkshire around 2000.

.‘John Gray’s’ outstandingly large flowers (photo taken at Colesbourne Park 2/2023)

‘John Gray’ is a member of the much sought after Mighty Atom Group.  It has huge flowers on widely arching pedicels (flower stems), causing it to dip towards the ground.  This very beautiful, early-blooming snowdrop was selected by famous horticulturist E.B. Anderson for its “outstandingly large flower” from the Benhall, Suffolk, garden of John Gray in 1951 (Seven Years or Sixty Years of Gardening by E.B. Anderson, Joseph Publishing 1973).  It was first offered for sale by the Giant Snowdrop Company in 1967.  It is one of only 28 snowdrops to receive an Award of Garden Merit from the Royal Horticultural Society. 

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Carolyn

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