Year after year, with unfailing loyalty, appear in early January of thin spikes bristling green bare ground. Then, slowly but surely, Lancelot leaves grow. One fine morning, the flowers are there. If the sun is generous, the flower-shaped white drop turns into a bell flourished, allowing the bees enjoy the sweetness to bring some fresh pollen to the hive. The snowdrop (Galanthus nivalis) is part of our native flora. It occurs in nature, but he lives mostly in the vicinity of houses, although common in the gardens while simplicity of our grandmothers. Rarely available in nurseries, the snowdrop is really a plant to share. Often, the tuft widening along the trail is the memory of a relative or friend who has offered few bulbs taken from his garden.
Collections
Channel addition, small white bells receive special attention. Not only British gardeners have a great love for these flowers that brave the winter but they also collect different species and cultivars of snowdrops. Harvests of botanists around the world, followed by work hybridization and selection have given rise to dozens of different snowdrops. All these plants have leaves with ribbon and white flowers hanging in bells. So these are secondary features that distinguish species and cultivars. A snowdrop (Galanthus elwesii ‘Flore Pleno’) forms a double flower may already suspect that by far the width of the corolla. Galanthus ‘Magnet’ has a long stalk while fine after which the flower sways in the slightest breeze. A snowdrop is called ‘Kite’, which in English means “kite”. This is probably due to its long petals this snowdrop has been baptized.
The plant patience
The various cultivars of snowdrops hybridize cheerfully. When two different types are present in the garden, remove the fruit training on pain of seeing by planting new plants, combining the characteristics of parents. Eventually, the original plants might be lost in a happy mix. Devotees of snowdrops not therefore rely on vegetative propagation of bulbs to increase the surface by a flowered snowdrops determined. The bulb bought a nursery specializing in shape after three years of attentive care a little tuft. By the end of flowering, bulbs are then dug up, separated and replanted immediately so frequently. Ten years and two or three divisions later, the snowdrops are sufficiently numerous to give the look of any other bulb enthusiasts. Frosted English gardeners? Not at all. In this era where patience is most fitting, follow the rhythm of a plant that requires years to develop is probably one of the best ways to express his love of nature.
Early marriages
The passion of snowdrops as experienced in England germ here. Plant collectors have made their appearance at fairs gardening. How to value our snowdrops, common or odd? They must be married with hellebores, these plants to the growing success since they also fill our desire to see early corollas. If the weather is mild, the garden will be deliciously scented flowers of Sarcococca (Sarcococca hookeriana var. Digyna), a shrub of China still unknown which blooms in winter. Cyclamen coum fulfilling career also their flowers and foliage in the snow. Even early in the winter aconite (Eranthis hyemalis) at the beautiful yellow flower. Do not forget the hazel whose long catkins releasing clouds of pollen in the wind. At its foot, in ten or twenty years, our snowdrops form a broad white carpet, white announcing spring.
