‘Wasp’ certainly has all the elements of a typical snowdrop, but its long petals and unusual markings make it look just like the flying insect when the wind blows.
Our current snowdrop catalogue is on line here.
People often try to tell me that all snowdrops look alike: white with three longer outer petals and three shorter inner petals with a green mark. They should know better. I would never admit that as I am a galanthophile who revels in observing the smallest differences. I can go on at length about bloom time, leaf color and shape, and the intricacies of the inner mark, but I won’t. Here I want to show you snowdrops that even the skeptical will recognize as different.
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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The elegant and graceful double snowdrop ‘Ballerina’ certainly stands out from the pack.
Most gardeners are all about the flowers, and it is the blooms that I will focus on here. The flower variations just within the three inner segments (petals)-three outer segments-single green inner mark theme are amazing, and I will show you a few of those like ‘Wasp’ above. But then there are yellow snowdrops, regular doubles like ‘Ballerina’ above, virescent (green) snowdrops, crazy doubles, flowers with extra petals, all white snowdrops, the variety is endless. There is even ‘The Alburgh Claw’. Let’s start the show.
Although still single-flowered and green and white, ‘Melanie Broughton’ has a very large solid green inner mark and bright white, puffy and quilted outer segments.
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‘Daphne’s Scissors’ has a very unusual inner mark shaped like scissors. Thanks to Mark Smyth at the Galanthus Gallery for supplying this excellent photo.
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‘Viridapice’ has green markings on the outside of the flower.
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‘Diggory’ is the only snowdrop flower with pear-shaped, squared off outer segments.
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‘Rosemary Burnham’ is a virescent snowdrop with a solid green inner mark and elegant green stripes completely covering the outer segments.
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‘Spindlestone Surprise’ is one of a growing number of snowdrops that have a yellow mark and a yellow ovary (the cap on top of the flower). Others include ‘Wendy’s Gold’ and ‘Primrose Warburg’.
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‘Blonde Inge’ is one of the few galanthus that combine a yellow mark with a green ovary.
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‘Lady Elphinstone’ is the only double yellow.
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‘Godfrey Owen’ doubles the number of inner and outer petals to six each and holds its flowers open in a beautiful whorl.
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‘Hill Poe’ is a late blooming double with lots of white inside.
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‘Blewbury Tart’ is a vigorous double snowdrop with outward-facing, mostly green flowers.
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‘Anglesey Abbey’ can be solid white and poculiform, meaning that its inner segments are replaced by outer segments.
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‘Walrus’ has mostly green inner segments and long green outer “tusks”.
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And you were wondering about ‘The Alburgh Claw’, well click here for a photo of one of the weirdest snowdrop forms, the spikey double.
Carolyn
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