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, hellebores, and/or hostas. Click here to get to the home page of our website for catalogues and information about our nursery and to subscribe to our blog.
The BBC News Magazine was hours away from publication when they emailed to request a photo of me with snowdrops. My husband and I had a quick photo shoot and this is what we came up with.
We interrupt the regularly scheduled flow of posts on this blog with breaking news. The owner of Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is prominently featured in the BBC News Magazine lead article for February 2 entitled “Snowdrop Fanciers and Their Mania”.
All kidding aside, I couldn’t be more thrilled. I am in the company of Matt Bishop and John Grimshaw, two of the authors of the “snowdrop bible” Snowdrops: A Monograph of Cultivated Galanthus, and Chris Ireland-Jones, the owner of the famous English snowdrop nursery Avon Bulbs. You know what a snowdrop fanatic I am so this is the ultimate compliment. To read the article (I am in the second half), click here.
Second Annual Snowdrops & Other Winter Interest Plant Seminars
Charles Cresson pointing out some of his very unusual snowdrop cultivars to last year’s seminar attendees.
I am very excited that winter interest plant expert and gardener extraordinaire Charles Cresson has agreed once again to give seminars on Snowdrops and Other Winter Interest Plants just for my customers. The seminars will be limited to 20 people each and will take place in his amazing Swarthmore garden, Hedgleigh Spring. The brochure telling you the details and how to sign up is here. If you are a local gardener and interested in attending, I encourage you to email immediately because I expect these seminars to sell out. For a complete description of the 2011 seminars with many photos, click here.
Since this post is about all things snowdrop, I thought I would show you the first snowdrops to bloom in my garden in 2012:
The very first snowdrop cultivar to open in my garden in 2012: ‘Kite’. Notice the very long outer segments (petals).
Second to open was Galanthus plicatus ‘Augustus’ with its striking puffy rounded and quilted outer segments.
‘Magnet’ is open and swaying in the breeze on its unusually long and thin flower stems (pedicels).
The double common snowdrop ‘Flore Pleno’ is blooming even though it is usually one of the last snowdrops to open in the middle to end of March.
The aristocratic snowdrop ‘Atkinsii’, said to resemble the pearl drop earrings of Elizabeth I, is also flowering.
The common snowdrop, G. nivalis, is blooming a few weeks early. I shot this picture to document the date they opened and had a funny feeling that something wasn’t right. When I uploaded the photos to the computer I realized the plants in the front have four outer segments instead of three—very interesting.
The giant snowdrop, G. elwesii, has been flowering on and off since November, but this patch just opened this week.
I avidly read the Galanthus threads on the Scottish Rock Garden Club forum where galanthophiles from all over the world meet to obsess about snowdrops. I highly recommend this forum if you are interested in snowdrops and want to learn more. The forumists are some of the most knowledgeable galanthophiles around but very welcoming and eager to share their passion. Several of them commented on the varied markings on the giant snowdrops pictured above which got me outside with my camera to record the marks. Here is what I found:
Every flower in this collage is the same species, G. elwesii, and yet the green marks on the inner segments are all different, from the small single green mark on the middle right flower to the mark that looks like a mustache and eyes in the middle of the bottom row. Although I realize this will not excite most gardeners, at least everyone can see the amazing variety. And variety is the spice of life.
I have recently been honored with the Versatile Blogger Award by four different blogs, and I want to thank them for the accolade. I try to make my blog posts varied and yes versatile (able or meant to be used in many different ways), and I am glad that my efforts are appreciated. I am not following the award rules, but instead letting you know who gave me the award in hopes that you will visit their blogs. Here are the links and some information to entice you to visit them:
Graphicality–UK: Helene is a very accomplished author. You might want to check out her recent post on the book she published with her lovely photos of Kew Gardens. Her current post talks about US grey squirrels invading Britain.
Green Place: Sheila is in Chapel Hill, NC, and reflects on spirituality, nature and gardening. She and I also share a love of Maine islands.
The Amateur Weeder: For a very different perspective, Lyn gardens in Australia and her blog produces “seedlings from the mind of an inconstant gardener.” I particularly liked her recent post called Designed by Nature.
Women and the Garden: Patty writes about “the history of the garden and the various roles women played in that history,” and it is all absolutely fascinating. She doesn’t post often, but when she does you don’t want to miss it. Her latest post is on Pomona, the roman goddess of fruiting trees and orchards.
Carolyn
Notes: Every word that appears in orange on my blog is a link that you can click for more information. If you want to return to my blog’s homepage to access the sidebar information (catalogues, previous articles, etc.) or to subscribe to my blog, just click here.
CAROLYN'S SHADE GARDENS 