Milder winter and bulb auctions mean bumper year for snowdrops
SNOWDROPS are set for a bumper crop this season as a result of mild winter weather amid rising interest in the flower leading to expensive sales of unique bulbs.
The flowers are among the first to bloom after winter, but have started appearing earlier than normal this year according to Jessica Jansdotter, a horticulturist at RHS Wisley.
“Many of the snowdrops in our collections started flowering weeks before the usual flowering time, which I think probably is due to the mild winter we’ve had, particularly in December,” she told the BBC.
The UK had the warmest Christmas Eve in 20 years last year, as temperatures in south-west London hit 15.3C.
It came at the end of the second warmest year on record for the UK, and followed a trend of fewer very cold days and higher minimum temperatures in winter as a result of climate change.
Snowdrops will start flowering when temperatures reach around 10C, when pollinators start to emerge.
Ms Jansdotter said we could see more snowdrops in general this year, because of the early flowering.
“I have also seen a bit of an increase in snowdrops, a sort of bumper crop, if you will,” she said.
A study from the University of Cambridge in 2022 found hundreds of records of snowdrops flowering before New Year’s Day, and suggested plants could be flowering a month earlier than previously as a result of climate change.
Snowdrop enthusiasts have been on the rise in recent years, with unique varieties being sold for increasingly high sums.
In 2022, a new variety named Galanthus plicatus, or Golden Tears, sold for a record-breaking £1850 in an ebay auction. The variety was developed by Joe Sharman, a gardener known as King of the Snowdrops, who is based in Cambridgeshire.
Another of Mr Sharman’s varieties, the Golden Fleece, set the previous record when it sold for £1390 in an auction in 2015, after he spent 18 years developing the flower.
It’s a good year for snowdrops. They have been flowering vigorously, weeks earlier than their traditional season, and they undeniably put on a charming display. Their downcast countenances may make them seem a little too meek, yet they fearlessly drive the snow into retreat. Snowdrops continue to be fashionable, as flowers can. Galanthus is their genus, and to outsiders today galanthomanes seem as fanatical as the followers of tulip mania in the 17th century. A single snowdrop bulb fetched £1,850 a couple of years ago. If that seems impossibly extravagant, at least the plants can return and spread year by year, while the £300 that a theatregoer might pay to see that play with Sarah Jessica Parker will, after an hour or two, leave with nothing but a memory. The snowdrop wins by dint of understated perseverance.