Choose Your Favourite Snowdrops

Dispel the winter gloom with beautiful snowdrops, says Hazel Sillver. Now’s the time to order them ‘in the green’.

- Hazel Sillver

AFTER the long barren months, the spell of winter is finally broken by the sight of snowdrops (galanthus). Seeming like a miracle, they flower before everything else, each clump a handful of white bells that dance on the breeze, and - when there is no wind - fill the air with the smell of honey and almonds. These harbingers of spring laugh at the cold weather, blooming madly amidst frost and even snow, and appearing year after year where we’d forgotten we planted them.

We love snowdrops so much that we might imagine them to be native but in fact they’re foreigners. First recorded here in the late 16th century, they were not found growing in the wild until the late 18th century. They originate from western Asia, and parts of Europe, including north Italy.