Little drops of green and white

Does any flower give more hope than snowdrops? Pure white modest flowers with a chaste beauty, that belies their tough nature. There they are each January, bravely emerging between the fallen leaves and ivy tendrils.

Snowdrops are hardy, but they are not the fastest of bulbs to colonise a woodland or riverbank. Where you see drifts of snowdrops you are looking at decades or even centuries of growth. Such plantings are some of the loveliest sights you will see.

Snowdrops are often found in burial grounds, and such plantings must be for hope and memory. I have seen snowdrops in well-kept town cemeteries and on wind blasted burial grounds full of old graves, and they always stir the heart.

In Drumnadrochit, a village close to Abriachan there is a very special area of woodland at the confluence of two rivers, called the Cover. The Rivers that flow through the Cover to Loch Ness have regularly flooded in the past and have brought down plant material from gardens. Hence we have had Japanese Knotweed (thankfully eradicated now) and raspberry canes, but the one intruder I think is wonderful is the snowdrop. Undisturbed under the trees they have multiplied and now give a lovely show each year.

For anyone with a new house and garden, wait for the first January, February and see if you have snowdrops if not, then buy some, and as with tree planting it is for the next generation.

The magic of Witch Hazel

Building a pond