February

Snow, which it has to be said was ravishing, has never really settled here before, not in fifteen years of bringing up three boys who longed to toboggan down through the orchard. When it finally came only one was here to enjoy it, and after a couple of days we began to get restless about the disruption. When it left the snow left, as it always does, a kind of waterloggedness unlike any other, mushy and dispiriting. But then there came the fine day you know will come, but you can’t quite trust it to happen, when the sun actually warms your back for a moment and you pause to enjoy it with a sigh. My bees were straight out there, impatient to work the snowdrops and aconites.
Canon Ellacombe, who was in the 19th century our local Christopher Lloyd – journalist, parson, bombast, and plantaholic – and lived in Bitton the next village between here and Bath, was said to have the “most richly stocked garden in England” when he published “In a Gloucestershire Garden” in 1895. He almost certainly encouraged the planting of millions of snowdrops and cyclamen in our dell. We have continued to plant and to propagate, lying on our bellies in February, spreading thousands of Gallanthus nivalis and a host of other rarified treats in the garden and woodland. We were encouraged at the beginning by being given bundles of prized bulbs by Christopher Gibbs – who enlightened us about the world of formidable “Galanthophiles” like the famous Primrose Warburg who is said to have wanted to create in her garden at South Hayes “maintained and controlled wilderness” – a very sympathetic idea. The ‘Galanthophiles’ single minded pursuit of snowdrop perfection is not quite the way we follow out passions, but Julian began to beg and buy from Helen Ballard, Mrs Parker Jarvis, Foxcote Nursery and all over cultivars such as” Merlin“;”Lady Elphinstone“; “Mighty Atom“;” Daglingworth“; and also many species such as G. plicatus byzantinus. This was Ellacombe’s favourite and one of the first snowdrops to show in January. The great globular “G. Sam Arnott“ is so powerfully honey-scented it must make the bees dance and sing. Having seen Mary Keen’s bank of this one variety at her garden at Duntisbourne Rouse, we came home wishing that we had planted more of this splendour – but we always, always wish we had planted more of everything – and wishing once again that we had studied and practised the art of “twin scaling”. This is a fascinating way of multiplying certain bulbs by surgically slicing them into as many as fifty bits, all must have a piece of basal plate, and putting them in a dark place in a sealed plastic bag with vermiculite. After 12 weeks every single one is likely to be a viable snowdrop bulb in need of potting up. However, they do seed themselves in the wood naturally – most often right in the middle of the existing clump – and they do produce offsets every year. All of which means you can dig them up, delve and divide and dig back in, seperately or in twos, millions of clustered spears of G. nivalis. This week they bristle down the dell and form a huge milky puddle under the Walnut tree; rich reward for last year’s labours.

Saturday, February 28, 2009