Galanthomania

There is something about a snowdrop valiantly pushing its way up through the frozen winter ground as a herald of spring that has earned it a lot of ardent admirers. Snowdrops (from the genus Galanthus) are not native to the British Isles but there are now many hundreds of different varieties grown here. There are often only very subtle differences between them, and it may be difficult for many to understand why galanthomania and snowdrop collecting has become such a big thing. Bidding wars have led to rare varieties selling for eye watering amounts of money – in 2022 a single bulb of ‘Golden Tears’ sold on Ebay for nearly £2,000, reminiscent of the tulip mania that so enthralled 17th century Europe.

In a small way, snowdrops do set my own pulse racing and last weekend we visited a garden in the North Downs that was bravely opening during the first weekend in February for the National Garden Scheme Snowdrop Festival.

Knowle Hill Farm with wonderful long-reaching views over the Kentish Weald

Around 3,500 privately-owned gardens across England, Wales and Northern Ireland open under the National Garden Scheme every year. A small charge is made to enter and there are often also light refreshments and plant sales, with all proceeds going to charity. So, as well as the public getting the opportunity to be inspired by a beautiful private garden, £67 million has been raised for charity since the scheme began in 1927

We had the dog with us at the garden because we also threw in a walk for her at Kent Wildlife Trust’s Hothfield Heath reserve as part of the same trip

Although the dog generally loves humans, she gets anxious around the unpredictability of children. She wears her Nervous harness when she is out in company as a warning to parents

The garden has around one hundred and forty different varieties of snowdrop, many of which were labelled up. Fieldgate Prelude and Don Armstrong seemed like very vigorous varieties:

The snowdrop flower has three long and three shorter tepals hanging below a cone-like ovary:

The word tepal is used when a flower’s petals and sepals are indistinguishable

I was very taken with the varieties that had yellow rather than green ovaries and I think that Spindlestone Surprise was my favourite one in the garden:

Unfortunately there were no pots of Spindlestone Surprise on offer at the plant sales table, but I did buy two pots of Madeleine which is still a very beautiful snowdrop, although her ovaries are not quite as yellow:

I was surprised to see honey bees visiting the snowdrops although I’m afraid that I didn’t feel comfortable getting myself down onto the ground to try to photograph them – other visitors would have had to step over me. Since honey bees attempt to survive the winter, they are one of the few flying insects that are able to emerge on mild days to take advantage of what pollen is on offer.

But since pollinators are scarce in February, snowdrops do not rely on them and mainly reproduce by bulb division. However, should they get pollinated, seeds will then form in the ovary. Once flowering is over, the stems collapse and the seeds come to rest on the ground. The seeds have a protein and oil-rich protuberance on them called an elastiome which attracts ants to them. These ants carry the seeds underground in order to feed the elastiome to their larvae, but the seeds remain untouched and have now effectively been planted by the ants. I love to learn things like this.

There was also topiary to admire in the garden:

One of the joys of visiting a garden is coming away with ideas for your own garden back home. We loved this small kingfisher sculpture..

…and this swift weathervane:

I always find the taps on waterbutts frustratingly inadequate and slow-running and would love to just be able to plunge a watering can into tanks like these:

The lids would mean that there is no worry that birds would fall in and drown

Back in the meadows, I’m always pleased to find and be able to identify new invertebrate species and this week a two-toothed door snail, Clausilia bidentata, was attached to the bottom of a trail camera sitting on a rotting log:

Door snails are unusual amongst other snails because they have a left-handed spiral, but also because they have a door (a clausilium) that can slide across the shell opening in grooves and which protects the soft parts of the snail against predators

I may have never seen a land snail this shape before, but the two-toothed door snail is common and lives in woods and hedges, coming out at night to graze on lichens

Yellowhammer numbers are going up. There are five here waiting for the magpies to finish, but I have seen a maximum of eight in one photo this week:

The crows here have started nest building:

I have also seen magpies flying around with sticks but haven’t yet worked out where this year’s nest is.

Over in the wood, I notice that this female sparrowhawk is ringed:

I remembered a sparrowhawk being ringed in the wood back in 2019 and looked out the photo:

But this was a male and so is not the bird seen this week.

Nine blue tits and a great tit here at this pond:

Unfortunately squirrels have now started carrying sticks and leaves into the owl box

They are definitely setting up home in there, but the tawny owls have not completely given up:

My final photo for today is the contents of a very exciting package that arrived this morning:

I might not have been able to purchase this snowdrop variety last weekend, but I did manage to buy a single, underwhelming little bulb on the internet when I got home. Admittedly it has a long way to go before it looks like the charming group of Spindlestone Surprises we saw last weekend, nodding their yellow-ovaried heads in the February sunshine, but I will put it into the ground now and see what next February brings.