‘Dumbo’ stands out among the many Trym-like snowdrop cultivars available .
To see last year’s snowdrop catalogue, click here.
I have been selling snowdrops since I started my nursery in 1991. However, in 2013, I started importing from England cultivars that were hard-to-find in the US and growing them on for my customers. My imports for catalogue sales always focused on cultivars that were well known and readily available in Europe, but every year I purchased single bulbs of a small number of rare and expensive cultivars to add to my own collection. I am excited that once again I will be selling limited quantities of those choice snowdrops.
As usual, the 2027 Snowdrop Catalogue will be posted on our website in the first half of December 2026. Meanwhile, this post will give everyone an advance look (sorry, no advance orders) at some of the special, new snowdrops that I intend to sell in the catalogue if everything goes according to plan. 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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A close up of ‘Dumbo’ shows its huge inverse poculiform flowers.
‘Dumbo’ is an inverse poculiform snowdrop, meaning that all six segments resemble inner segments, creating its instantly recognizable pagoda-like shape. It is a classic member of the ever-increasing ‘Trym’ family, but with a difference: ‘Dumbo’s’ flowers are absolutely enormous and have excellent substance. Although flower size and markings are similar to ‘Ivington Green’, it is taller, more upright, and later blooming.
Well known German plantsman Thorsten Krautwurst discovered it in his garden in the late 2010s but knows nothing about its background. It could have hybridized in his extensive snowdrop collection or been brought from England as an unnamed seedling. It was named after the Disney character by German author and landscape designer Anne Repnow in 2022.
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‘Cliff Curtis’ stands out from the crowd and is recognizable without a label.
‘Cliff Curtis’ has big, rounded outer segments that open wide due to their long claws (attach the segments to the ovary), revealing the lovely interior markings on the ridged inner segments. The inners have two dots around the sinus and a delicate yellowish-green wash in the center—very unusual! It is a later-blooming, tall and vigorous snowdrop with a very good scent. It was selected from the garden of Cliff Curtis (click to follow link), an accomplished snowdrop hybridizer, in Hacconby, Lincolnshire, England, and named in his honor in 2003, at the National Galanthus Gala.
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‘Alpha Kingfisher’ is a beautiful member of Ruslan Mishustin’s Alpha Series of snowdrops.
‘Alpha Kingfisher’ is a cultivar of Galanthus plicatus selected by Ruslan Mishustin and included in his Alpha Series of snowdrops. This early-blooming, virescent snowdrop has fine green lines, which darken as it becomes more established, on the bottom half of its outer segments and almost totally green inner segments. Ruslan is a Ukranian academic and botanist, based in Kherson, Ukraine, until his house and greenhouse were bombed by the Russians. ‘Alpha Kingfisher’ was found by him in the Crimea and introduced around 2010.
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This photo taken during our visit to Avon Bulbs in 2017 shows the extraordinarily long and slender outer segments of ‘Moya’s Green’.
‘Moya’s Green’ is a beautiful and distinctive cultivar of Galanthus elwesii. The flowers are noticeably elongated and narrow. It has a solid green mark on the inner segments, reaching almost to the base. The outer segments are very long and slender with a large band of pale olive-green. The leaves are broad and glaucous and reach almost to top of the flower scapes. Avon Bulbs’ 2024 catalogue calls ‘Moya’s Green: “One of the most easily identified green marked snowdrops,” a high compliment from the most reputable of sources!
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Another photo from our visit to Avon Bulbs in 2023.
‘Moya’s Green’ was found by Moya Green in the garden of noted horticulturist and galanthophile Michael Baron at Brandy Mount House in the town of Alresford, Hampshire, England, and introduced by him around 2014.
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Look for another post profiling more new snowdrops for 2027.
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Carolyn
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