Cold Climate Gardening

Photo of Temple Nursery snowdrop courtesy Craig Cramer. All rights reserved.True to his word, Craig of Ellis Hollow did indeed visit the Temple Nursery on Open Garden Day, and took pictures. If you haven’t stopped over to read his account and get a glimpse of the variety possible within the genus Galanthus, now would be a good time to go take a look. I was out of town and couldn’t go …

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My main snowdrop “patch” exactly a year ago. They are not so far along this year. Click the photo for a close-upWith all my blathering on about snowdrops, I almost forgot to mention that Hitch Lyman’s garden will be the Garden Conservancy’s first New York state event for their 2008 Open Garden Days on April 5, 2008. If you are able to visit his garden, you will think you have died and gone to snowdrop heaven, because Hitch is the proprietor of Temple Nursery, selling the widest selection of snowdrops in the U.S. (growing over 400 different kinds, not all for sale) and the only one shipping them in the green. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Don’s Galanthus ‘Bitton’ and G. woronowii both originally came from Hitch Lyman’s land, even if they’ve made an intermediate stop since then.

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You tell me: do I have blooms for Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day?

These snowdrops are the furtherest along of all that I have. They have “dropped”; that is, their buds are no longer pointing up, but have been released from their sheaths and are hanging from their pedicels.
Now these…

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It got up to 51 F yesterday, so I took a walk to see what I could see. And what did I see, but my first glimpse of snowdrops:

What! You can’t see them? Look closer:

Oh…you didn’t think I meant snowdrop flowers, did you? For that you’ll have to wait another two-and-a-half months. Seriously.

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Good things come to those who wait. At least ten years ago, I planted the first of these snowdrops lining the path to the Secret Garden. You will have to click on the photo to enlarge it in order to see them, because they are the ones way in the back, on the far side of the footbridge, looking no more than a white blob from this distance. They are the same snowdrops that you see in every header image, because they have been nice, substantial clumps for at least as long as we’ve owned a digital camera.

Since they were given to me by a friend,

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I took this photo yesterday, a day ahead of Garden Bloggers Bloom Day. I knew that rain was predicted for Wednesday afternoon and throughout today, but late yesterday morning it was merely overcast and quite mild, and I thought, “Go looking for flowers now, or forget about it.”

So I went galomphing about in the nearly slushy snow, and took photos of snowdrops in various stages of bud. These were the closest to blooming.

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This time of the year, it’s amazing what a difference a day can make. Thursday, snow on the ground. I couldn’t have taken these photos on Thursday because these plants were still buried under snow. Friday, snow had melted, but nothing had bloomed. Yesterday (Saturday) the sun was shining and I had snowdrops blooming in three different locations. These first ones are ‘Sam Arnott,’ purchased from Odyssey Bulbs, who assured that they are the real thing. (Apparently there are impostors lurking in the trade.) But I remember them being much taller last year. This year, they give the appearance of being buried too deeply, as if (speaking anthropomorphically) they are buried up to their chests instead of their shins. I suspect our wacky winter may have something to do with this. The double snowdrops in the next photo have the same problem.

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