Another six-petalled snowdrop, but the shorter-stemmed flowers open to form Tiffany-style lamps. Margaret Owen, the late and much-missed galanthophile, found it in a Shropshire churchyard and named it after her late husband.
‘Godfrey Owen’ spaces itself out as it increases and flowers reliably every year, so this grey-leaved poculiform (shaped like a pixie hat) snowdrop is literally a star performer.
Galanthus elwesii ‘Mrs Macnamara’ AGM
This is one of the very best early snowdrops. The pale grey foliage indicates a preference for a brighter position and I find my clump thrives on the sunnier side of an apricot.
The single flowers are decidedly elegant, with crisp, dark-green inner marks, and they’re held on taller stems so they resist inclement weather really well. Mrs Macnamara was Dylan Thomas’s mother-in-law and this elegant snowdrop may have Irish origins for Yvonne Macnamara’s father, Henry Vee Macnamara, had two estates in County Clare.
Mrs Macnamara had a difficult relationship with Thomas: she’s thought to have burnt his notebooks after his death. However, one of her ancestral homes, Ennistymon House, is now the Falls Hotel with a Dylan Thomas bar!
Galanthus woronowii ‘Elizabeth Harrison’
This is the only yellow form of Galanthus woronowii, a squat snowdrop with wide green leaves. This unique yellow seedling, produced by foraging bees, was found in Elizabeth Harrison’s Dunblane garden in 2002. Scottish snowdrop grower Ian Christie realised its importance and the first available bulb was auctioned on eBay and bought by Thompson & Morgan for £725.
Although brilliant publicity, ‘Elizabeth Harrison’ is notoriously difficult to propagate by chipping, ie to cut into slivers, because it’s slimy. Like all yellows, it needs to get the spring sunshine on its flowers.
The greentipped ‘Cider with Rosie’, discovered in a Tewkesbury garden centre by perry maker Kevin Minchew, is an indicator of what could be lurking in your local garden centre.
