Electric Green

A letter to my snowdrop-loving friends, after E. A. Bowles ; My Dear Galanthophil*, I am writing to you in some excitement: my book, The Plant Lover’s Guide to Snowdrops is finally released in the UK. By now you may even have a copy, in which case I hope you are enjoying it. There are, as you know, different sorts of books on Galanthus : The terribly serious academic ones, the terribly gorgeous arty ones, and mine. So what’s it all about? Well may you ask. Cover image is G. nivalis 'Blonde Inge' As a lover of snowdrops since childhood, I was thrilled to be approached by Timber Press to contribute to their new Plant Lover’s Guides series. But this is a plant we all know so well; what could be new and different, what could I do that was reasonably comprehensive but also engaging and fun? My first point of reference was the idea of ‘love’. People love for many reasons. The object may be beautiful or it may bestow hope and strength. There may be happy ass...

My local municipal flowerbed, back when it used to be fun. I have a bit of a bee in my bonnet about municipal planting and garden design in public spaces. It is an opportunity to bring style, excitement or just a bit of beauty to the masses; and one that is usually left to languish in unkempt evergreen scrub. This is somewhere that a little planning and creativity could reap dividends, but the norm is either uninspired, high maintenance and wasteful, or both. Just up the road from me is a long curved flowerbed in a small public garden adjacent to a roundabout. It used to be fun, it really did. When I first met it, someone had put in some thought and the late summer display looked so good in a soft morning mist that I went home and came back with a camera. This is the same flower bed as below, five years earlier. It wasn’t a challenging or intellectual display, the plants are all quite ordinary but it had a cheerful flair and pizzazz. And then they dug the whole lot...

It may or may not be common knowledge that I have a book out this year. It is on snowdrops**, for which I have a lifelong love and appreciation. This is clearly not the same thing as having a humungeous collection of rarities. If you want such a thing, go and talk to my friend Joe Sharman . Where that is concerned, he's the boy.    Published by Timber Press. Out in the US in April, the rest of you will have to wait. As it happens, I have, numerically, lots of snowdrops - they are parked in a corner and there are more each year. They are mostly variations of common nivalis, including a few that I have selected ‘to watch’ but they are not what you would call posh. The fancy snowdrop collection is increasing cheerfully and enthusiastically but, until recently, has been kept intentionally fairly modest and realistically more hardy than fancy, depending on how high your standards are ***. Anyway, while writing, two things came up time and again – firstly that one shoul...