What a great early bloomer! i can definitely see the "sail" aspect.

I only have common types for snowdrops but a few are poking up with buds! There's cold tonight and tomorrow so hopefully nothing will burn. I've a delusional daffodil bud or two that might turn to mush, though.

Wow, so so pretty! Please post more as the season of blooms progresses. I love seeing snowdrops in bloom. Thanks!

We're back down to freezing cold and ice. Not too bad though, and most of the drops just roll with the cold.

Posie most of my daffs are still hiding below ground!

run of the mill drops

the first of the yellows, also iced in

They are so advanced! Are your eranthis also coming up? I haven't seen mine yet (hope they made it!) .

Here's a confession. A few days ago I visited a snowdrop grower down near Philly and might have added a few new ones while I was there. He has a greenhouse full!

I also added a few hardy cyclamen, he had a few of those as well lolI would have bought an orange winter aconite, but already got one last year.
Hopefully it will look as nice as these in a few weeks.Anyone in the know will be able to guess where I went, but here's the website in case anyone wants to waste some time looking at all kinds of special little things.

Edgewood Gardens website

If you're feeling really brave here's the current list of what's for sale.... *warning* Some of the prices can be a little bit of a shock, and the fact that a few are already sold out says to me I'm not the craziest one out there!
Most recent list of spring offerings

Posie I do have the first eranthis just starting to come up, they're the little yellow things under the ice in the first picture. If we get another warm day or two I think they might thaw out and open! Hope yours are on their way. Is this their first year?

re: Edgewood Gardens

Dear God, please forfend the exorbitant prices. That being said, yes, I would love several of those plants, but not in my budget at *all*. I desire the white eranthis and the white sternbergia.

Seriously, I would love someone to explain to me why we need so many different varieties of snowdrops. I don't mean that pejoratively...just that it's a very tiny minor bulb, why do people go crazy for them? I just want to understand the mind of a galanthaphile. I love cyclamen, but I don't obsessively collect any genera. So...speak those who love snowdrops, let me in on the secret :)

I can't speak for others but I was out in the garden a couple times today bundled up for the cold, soaking in whatever sun I could, and admiring the first bunches of snowdrops. The witch hazels are also blooming, the earliest winter aconite are just starting to come up, but it's the snowdrops which are sprouting and flowering and growing each day and it's so nice to see this in a garden that is still otherwise brown and dormant and mostly frozen. Would they be as exciting if they flowered in June? Probably not, but it's not June and there's still another month before the rest of the bulbs kick in to carry on the season.

Plant collectors are probably a little odd in general and I won't even pretend to understand what happens. One minute you're picking up an orchid at the grocery store, the next you're building a greenhouse for them.

Lol, katob, true true. Ok, I have grown one clone of snowdrops. In my zone, it tends to bloom later than aconite, crocus, or even hellebores.

That's probably why it means less to me, other things are in bloom by the time my zone tardy late snowdrops would throw a few blooms. I didn't really think my climate made them happy at all (too little cold and too hot later), though they did make a nice clump after twenty years in my parent's yard. I can certainly appreciate the excitement of the first blooms of spring in a climate where they are that.

Edit: I went and looked at MoBot, and apparently I almost performed a miracle having snowdrops that lasted so long in the heat. Still, they weren't happy.

That makes sense. I should send you a few of the ones which struggle here in my garden, that is assuming they're still alive by the time things start to warm. Right now they've gone to mush in the last blast of cold even though I had them under a cover, while others in full bloom and uncovered didn't blink an eye. The heat lovers do seem to like good drainage though, not always an option further south.

I have a friend in Georgia who's had a little success with snowdrops, but I sometimes look at her garden with blooming camellias, hellebores and evergreens galore and wonder why she bothers!

Yep, and I'm about halfday (really) between you and your friend in Georgia.

And yes, the most recent cold blast turned spring lycoris and winter aconite to mush :( here too.

Katob, beautiful pics! Your snowdrops are lovely and hopefully they were not damaged being caked in ice. Did the blooms make it through the deep freeze? How are they looking now? I have to make a trip to Edgewoods Gardens these days. It is only 45 minutes away from my house. I am afraid I cannot restrain myself though and blow my budget while being there. :) :)

Dbarron, if anyone could create a Southern miracle, it would be you. All these little bulbs are less familiar as I spent a great deal of my childhood in the deep South.

Katob, my aconite are no where to be seen (second year) and neither are the snowdrops except for a few snowdrops close to the house. They get the most sun and likely the house walls and walkway radiate heat back to the soil.

I'm looking daily for evidence of snowdrops that I inherited from my grandfather and placed here and there around the garden. Being farther away from the house, I only spied the first little clump just slightly poking back the mulch today which is a big relief.

I'm thinking that if my eranthis are going to show up for a second year, I should be seeing evidence around or shortly after I see all the snowdrops push out greens. I have weeks before I get concerned. I would be disappointed if the don't come back. They are adorable.

posierosie, unless the foliage was destroyed last year, I would have confidence in your aconite, but mine are gone (1/2 mushed by recent polar vortex) for this year, only the juvenile ones (w/o flowers) having escaped unscathed. First year I ever saw that. The hassle with the aconite is usually just getting viable stock, since they don't store well dry.

Well, that's good news they might be there although I'm sorry to hear your flowers were mushed by the weather.

It's the strangest thing - I must have had a good batch of tubers. I soaked them overnight and then planted with the rest of my bulbs. I got almost 100% return unlike other bulbs.... (frit meleagris....ahem!)

I went to take a picture of a big patch of snowdrops near me and I find they're nearly over. They've been going since Christmas. We're well into the crocuses and daffodils now....

Due to repeated deep freeze/thaw cycles, my hellebores were mostly ruined, my crocus lasted like a day before being freeze dried, my cyclamen coum didn't hold blooms. My hope is daffodils (coming on now) will be spared and have normal longevity this year.

What a year :(

Oh my, I am sorry Dbarron! How disappointing.

Floral, I never knew how relatively balmy the U.K. is until I realized when things bloom for you. Sounds so nice to have blooms during the winter!

Posierosie, as you can see my double snowdrops are on their way out. Winter is relatively mild but on the flip side summer is relatively cool. And spring goes on for weeks, as does autumn. The climate is just not very extreme in any direction.

So beautiful and a breath of fresh air! I can many things on the way in....

Agree! I love the purple crocus and red of the hellebores with the bright cheerful yellow of the daffs. Very lovely combo!

Floral, right now I'm entirely jealous of those full bloom flowers and pristine hellebore leaves. Here the ground is frozen, the hellebores are browned around the edges (which is an improvement from the usual completely brown!) and the flower stalks are still buds just barely making an appearance. But I'm off to look at witch hazels this morning!

dbarron I'm sorry to hear your garden took such a hit. I had a spring like that a few years ago and saw the same thing. Hellebores gone and daffs and tulips also heavily damaged. Weeks of rain followed and botrytis became the next plague. But then the end of May turned beautiful and all was forgotten, so I hope yours soon takes a turn for the better as well.

Beautiful crocus. It's still cold here and nothing's grown, but I did make a roadtrip!

Nice!

I poked around my thoroughly soaked garden and found a few buds of eranthis coming up. It's going to be 30's - 40's for highs with lows in the high 20's for the next two weeks (ugh). Hopefull, the lows will be brief dips in the middle of the night as I have quite a lot just poking through the leaf mulch.

My common snowdrops near the house microclimate are at my favorite stage where they look like little pearls hanging

I'm seeing more green everyday but the forecast is telling me not to get ahead too much as winter is not done with us just yet.

Posie, I'm guessing you're looking at new snow this morning? We have a couple inches, but that's actually a relief since it's supposed to go down to 5F this week and the snow should protect things until warmer weather returns.

Yesterday was warm enough up by the house to thaw Saturday's snow and open up the first winter aconites. The yellow doesn't last long but it sure is nice and bright.

Also along the shelter of the house.

I went ahead and planted the new witch hazels. Planting sites pretty much depended on where I could get a shovel in since most of the yard is still frozen.

Sorry. As you can see I'm not too concerned with spring cleanup yet. To be honest I'll probably not bother, and just toss a mulch of chopped leaves on top and be done with it.

hope everyone is staying warm!

With 8" of snow falling today in southern Maine this is the next best thing, forced forsythia for a bit of springtime until the real thing comes along.

Jtz, I have two vases of forsythia blooming in the house now. I love the blues in your dining room.

Katob, the snow threatened, but thankfully our ground temps were too high to really stick. School and work went on as scheduled. Only time will tell if this week makes an impact. I'm thinking it's still a bit early and I should be okay overall for the larger daffodil show.

My garden is still a mess, or what I call "winter interest". I'm leaving it up as protection of sorts although I do like to clean out all the stalks so that the shorter blooms really have a chance to stand out in Spring. That clean up will probably happen in a few weeks. I should put out some fertilizer though to help the development underground.

Finally! Two sunny, warm days and more snowdrops came up. The first snow crocus even opened today and the last of the snow melted this afternoon. Things were looking pretty good even though next week will be cooler again.

Here are a bunch of galanthus elwesii showing off their different 'faces' on the inside petals. Elwesii are the best snowdrop to order if you're buying from one of the big dutch bulb companies, the other species usually don't store well and often don't make it...

'Blonde Inge' is a small snowdrop which has yellow inside marks.

'Blewbury Tart' is a weird one which many people like... I'll hold off on sharing my own opinion.'Rosemary Burnham' has greenish flowers.

My neighbors must be getting a little concerned with how much I was wandering around in the garden today, but I'm thrilled to see winter winding down.

Nice! I'm glad the warm weather has arrived for you! Definitely cooler weather next week, by nothing like February!

Well, so far spring has been a bust, my crocus have typically lasted one or two days (before a massive freeze knocked them down several times), the eranthis were open two days..before turned into mush on the adult leaves..the babies were fine, the daffodils have all failed to open so far..I have hopes for some later ones, but don't know. The hellebores were trashed. Even the muscari were somewhat savaged. Oh and newly emerged spring lycoris lost all their foliage :(

Darn polar vortex!

Oh my! I hope the later Sprong bloomers pull through for you. Even the hellebores? Arent they partially made of cast iron?

Beautiful snowdrops, Katob! I really like Blonde and Rosemary ones. How long does it take for these two to clump up like shown above?

I am so sorry to hear about your early spring flowers damaged by the recent freeze, Dbarron! I hope that your mid and late spring blooms will be spared from such an occurrence.

Karen, I think the clumps are all about 4 or 5 years old from single bulbs. It all seems so hopeless when they're first planted but the years fly by way too fast and before you know it you're dividing!

dbarron, there's nothing good to say about that weather. We were luckily under snow and much further behind when it came through. A few years ago that happened here, and yes... all those plants which people always say 'oh don't worry about them, they're much hardier than you think', turned to mush. Some of the hellebores had a few late buds, and the late daffs were ok, but everything else was lost. I cut my wisteria standard to the ground because I was so mad it lost all the flower buds again. Fortunately(?) you can't kill a wisteria, so maybe this spring I'll see blooms on that.

Hopefully by April it will just be a bad memory.

Thanks, Katob! That is reassuring to know. I haven't taken the plunge into snowdrops yet because of the risk of loss. I have issue with snowdrops not coming back. Would hate to lose my investment in them within the first few years. Can you share what are the optimal conditions for growing your snowdrops? I'd appreciate all details that you can share. Thanks in advance!

Well Karen, that depends. I thought snowdrops were extremely easy until this spring, when I discovered quite a few didn't make it through all the rain.

In general though, sun to part shade suits most of them. They prefer a heavy soil and love a nice mulch of compost in the fall since they can be heavy feeders. Of the two most common types "giant" snowdrops (G. elwesii) do better in a raised bed or on a slope, and the common snowdrop (G. nivalis) and most of the hybrids don't mind a damper spot. A little shelter from the wind won't hurt either since the weather can get pretty nasty round about when they're in flower.

Don't bother buying the common snowdrops (nivalis) from the Holland bulb vendors. Even from the better sellers they are usually dried out and even if they come up the first year, they usually don't make it.

Don't worry, in a few more days the crocus and corydalis will start to take over and I'll (almost) forget all about snowdrops until next year! Some are multiplying well :)

Some are not to everyone's taste ('Modern Art', I don't necessarily like this one all that much)

Some have extra petals and no green inside- 'Moreton Mill'

and everything looks better with hardy cyclamen!

I visited a friend last weekend who is really off the deep end. The snowdrop collection goes on and on!

and then stopped by a park where they've been seeding out for the last century.

Love the picture of the park! It's really hard to capture the impact of something so tiny even in such numbers. The photo is pretty impressive. It must have been awesome in person!

Katob, thank you very much for the tips! I feel more confident now about getting some new ones next year. I need to find a good place and prepare the soil for them though. I really like your Blonde Inge and Rosemary Burnham. I may go for them.

Gorgeous photos! I really like the combo pic the best with the hardy cyclamen! I must admit that the pic of snowdrops in the park is really impressive with its multitude of snowdrops.