Garden Photo of the Day

Margot’s Snowdrops

Celebrating the earliest flowers

By GPOD Contributor
close up of Wasp snowdrops
Galanthus nivalis Viridspice’ shows off nicely in a simple vase. Wasp -a hybrid discovered by Veronica Cross at Sutton Court in Herefordshire in 1995. Vigorous grower with long white petals stands out in the garden.

Margot Navarre is sharing her earliest blooms with us today. She gardens in Bellevue, Washington, and we’ve visited her garden before; check out Summer in Margot’s Garden if you want to see what it looks like in the height of summer. But right now, Margot is celebrating a favorite group of plants: snowdrops.

lots of white flowers growing beneath trees in winter
Drifts of snowdrops in full bloom, so cheerful and tough, mark the end of each winter. To the right, ‘Chief Joseph’ lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta ‘Chief Joseph’, Zones 5–8) provides bright yellow needles to add to the snowdrop display. The pine holds this bright color through the winter, then shifts to green through the summer months.

close up of Galanthus Primrose Warburg
Galanthus ‘Primrose Warburg’ (Zones 3–8) has a long-lasting bloom time but hasn’t been prolific in our garden. On this variety, the green ovary and markings on the petals have shifted to yellow, giving extra color and beauty.

close up of Wasp snowdropsThe snowdrop variety ‘Wasp’ is a hybrid discovered by Veronica Cross at Sutton Court in Herefordshire in 1995. A vigorous grower with long white petals, it stands out in the garden.

Galanthus nivalis Viridspice in a vase
Galanthus nivalis ‘Viridspice’ (Zones 3–8) shows off nicely in a simple vase.

new garden bed
We designed and added a dry-stacked retaining wall to make more room for plants and extra special snowdrops. This is a picture from September.

And here’s the new bed in January. We planted a dwarf camellia, daphnes, primroses, cyclamen, ferns, a full-moon maple, and bulbs. We will continue to add speciality snowdrops to the new garden space.

 

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Comments

  1. User avater
    treasuresmom 02/28/2024

    Beautiful!

    1. margotnavarre 03/01/2024

      Thank you for enjoying the snowdrops.

  2. User avater
    simplesue 02/28/2024

    That's an amazing collection of Snow Drops! I love your dry-stacked retaining wall planter- really nicely built and uses the space well!

  3. margotnavarre 03/01/2024

    Thank you. It took a little planning to build the retaining wall and most of the plants came from my existing garden. The full moon maple was from a friend who I used to work in gardens with and since then she has retired so it is a special focal point.

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