Galanthus nivalis

I am tempted to let a simple photograph speak for itself: what is there to add when a flower is so eloquent? Is there any other that so epitomizes its season? To wish it bigger, or double, or gold-tipped, or anything but its simple pure white self seems to me perverse. I grow double ones, too, and the tall grey-leaved Galanthus elwesii; but I sometimes wonder why. The double version of G. nivalis is a tubby, jokey little thing, puffing out its skirts and losing all grace and dignity (as double flowers so often do) and flowers a little earlier. The snowdrop Mr Elwes found in the Balkans is a taller, statelier and graver plant, but unless you value difference for its own sake adds nothing to the purpose that our native does not say.

We have been dividing and replanting our snowdrops now for 30 years without managing the full carpet cover we admire in other gardens. Replanted divisions remain indefinitely in disparate clumps; a few seedlings spring up, but the effect is spottier than I would like. Perhaps I should plant them as individual bulbs – a longer job, and fiddly. Perhaps our soil is too dry. I’ve noticed that the best local populations are in the dampest places. On the other hand I noticed in the Auvergne beech woods bluebells cluster in the bottoms of ditches; you rarely see a wood truly carpeted with them as you do in this country.

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