The humble snowdrop has inspired some of our greatest poets to wax lyrical about these trembling pearls on swaying stalks.
FEBRUARY IS THE most exquisite month in the garden. The weather may be cold, damp, and freezing (miserable, in short), but there are things going on at ground level that are intensely sublime.
I'm talking about snowdrops, of course – also known as February's fair maids, snow piercers, dingle-dangles, Candlemas bells, Mary's tapers, and by many other inventive appellations. The little Galanthushas more names than most flowers: its welcome appearance at the austere end of the year guarantees that it is noticed and celebrated. And its emergence around Candlemas Day on February 2nd ties it in with the feast of Mary's purification after the birth of Christ. In times past, snowdrops were brought into churches on that day, as symbols of Mary's purity and chasteness.
Poets went mad for snowdrops, including Coleridge, Wordsworth and Erasmus Darwin, to mention just three. The last was the grandfather of Charles, whose 200th birthday occurs next Thursday (February 12th) at the height of snowdrop season. Grandpa Darwin, like many of his contemporaries, was a purveyor of shameless sentiment: “Warm with sweet blushes bright Galantha glows/And prints with frolic step the melting snows”.
An earlier poet, Thomas Tickell, who lived in Dublin (on the estate that, coincidentally, was to become the Botanic Gardens in Glasnevin) was similarly soupy in his long poem Kensington Garden. In his complicated ramble, a dead lover is resurrected as a snowdrop, which then multiplies exponentially so that its progeny resembles "vegetable snow" – a description that now, nearly 300 years after it was conceived, has an endearing awkwardness.
One of the best places for vegetable snow is at Primrose Hill in Lucan, a farmhouse whose gentrification at the beginning of the 19th century has been attributed to the architect of Dublin's Customs House, James Gandon. The front drive is lined with venerable beeches, under which white powdery blankets of the common snowdrop ( Galanthus nivalis) lie. These are the hoi polloi of the snowdrop world (we'll switch metaphors here, if you don't mind): quick to multiply, and happy to live in the rough and tumble of the meadowy lawn. Their hundreds of pure white bells make a stirring introduction to the more posh varieties that are safely ensconced in the garden behind the house.
Primrose Hill has been home to the Hall family since 1957. The late Cicely Hall, who died in 2003, was a well-known gardener, and her son, Robin, has long been Ireland’s Mr Snowdrop. Half a century ago, he became enamoured of the trembling pearls on swaying stalks, when as a young boy he was sent outside into the fresh air to recover from a middle ear infection (air, the more bracing the better, was the cure for most afflictions in those days). Snowdrops were much more forgiving than other plants: “You could move them when they were in flower,” he remembers, “and make little gardens of them.”
Arranging diminutive items in pleasing formations, whether they be toy soldiers or snowdrops, is one of the things that small boys are particularly good at. And while snowdrops, to the untutored eye, may appear no more that white blobs on green stems, to the discerning observer they offer an entire universe of variations – as many as the painted enamel uniforms on diverse lead soldiers. Aside from the occasional, aberrant, yellow-marked snowdrop, it is an entirely green-and-white universe. But to the ardent galanthophile (a word that we must dutifully wheel out when referring to lovers of this genus of bulbs) there is a world of difference between the hundreds of varieties.
The leaves, for instance, may be shiny or matt, a sombre blue-green (as in the beefy Turkish G. elwesii), or a bright, mossy tone, such as those of G. ikariae, first collected on Ikaria, one of the Aegean islands. They may be pleated or rolled, sharp or blunt, slow to develop or appearing precociously in tandem with the flower. Ah, but the flower . . . the flower! It is the flower that turns snowdrop fanciers' legs to jelly and their brains into analogy factories, churning out the purplest of prose, in an effort to convey the matchless purity of the porcelain outer petals and the hair's-breadth perfection of the finely-painted markings on the inner parts. There is, in other words, nothing so subtly pulchritudinous as a snowdrop.
Anyway, you get the idea: galanthophiles are hopelessly lost inside the flower structures of their favourite plants. Each bloom lasts for several weeks (the season’s cold weather has a very preservative effect), so there are plenty of opportunities for examining the countless differences between them. At Primrose Hill, there are dozens of species and cultivars begging to be compared. Just how many there are, Robin Hall won’t say. His baffling secretiveness seems to give him as much pleasure as the bulbs themselves.
Snowdrops are promiscuous, and are quick to cross with each other, sometimes producing interesting hybrids. Primrose Hill has yielded at least three: 'Cicely Hall', 'Robin Hall' and 'Ruby Baker'. All, says Robin, are the offspring of a G. plicatusthat came from Straffan, and a G. elwesiithat the Halls brought from their previous home, Rathmore, in Raheny. But don't ask to see them, as their whereabouts are not readily divulged. These little plants are valuable: single bulbs of some varieties command big prices (one rarity garnered over £250 on eBay last year).
Yet, despite their preciousness, snowdrops are, in the main, easy to grow. If you can get your hands on leafmould, give them some at planting time. Otherwise, finely sieved garden compost will do. When the clumps become congested and shy to flower, dig them up while they are still “in the green” (before the foliage dies in spring) and replant.
And finally, one thing must be cleared up: the snowflake ( Leucojum), although it looks like a giant snowdrop, and is a member of the same family, is not at all in the same social class. There's a rather jolly gathering of them at Primrose Hill, and although some visitors "almost prefer them to the snowdrop", they are, Robin, assures me, "as common as muck".
Snowdrop dates:Primrose Hill, Primrose Lane, Lucan, is open every day in February, 2-5pm. Adults €5, children €2.50. Access to the garden is through the black gates at the top of Primrose Lane. 01-6280373; www.dublingardens.comAltamont Garden, near Tullow in Co Carlow hosts its own snowdrop week from February 9th-16th, daily tours of the collection at 2pm. 059-9159444; www.altamontgarden.com