Tales from Titchmarsh

Online auctions can be hard to resist, says Alan, especially when it comes to bidding for the diminutive snowdrop

“When the fun stops, stop,” says the slogan on those TV ads for online gaming sites. I shudder as I conjure up Dickensian images of a debtors’ prison and of children sitting around a bare table wondering where the next meal is coming from on account of irresponsible parents gambling away their earnings.

It is hard to believe that such heartbreaking images could be brought to mind simply by buying snowdrops from an online auction site, but that, I am afraid, is the bald truth of it.

You see, that’s the thing about auctions, whether they are in a saleroom or online, there is a tendency to get carried away, and before you know where you are, you have spent far more than you intended.

The months of February and March are when galanthophiles (aka snowdrop fanciers) take to the internet to trade. The sale of rarities (and there are now more than 2,500 varieties of snowdrop registered) is big business, with bidders from all over the world vying for the pick of the bunch.

The world record was achieved in 2015, when a single bulb of ‘Golden Fleece’ was sold for £1,390 (plus £4 postage). Don’t you love that – postage and packing extra!

Now, before we go any further, let me make it quite clear that I have dabbled, but my own purchases have not been in that league. Named varieties can be bought online for as little as £7.50, which some would say is quite enough anyway, but then you can quickly sail up to the £100 mark and beyond if you are gripped by snowdrop auction fever. After all, if someone else is prepared to pay such a price, then the bulb must be worth it, mustn’t it? Well, up to a point. If it is worth it to you, then bid away, but bear in mind that prices will come down year on year as more of the bulbs are propagated and their rarity value is reduced.

It is all very well me explaining this to you, but I am, in effect, explaining it to myself, to sound a note of caution. But, oh, the delight of receiving brown paper parcels and opening them to reveal a flowering snowdrop either growing in a tiny pot or with its roots wrapped in aromatic damp moss to keep them safe in transit.

With my treasures unwrapped and lying on the potting bench, I pot them up individually in loam-based compost and add a layer of grit to prevent mud-splashing. I print out labels to make it clear which is which. For several weeks I will admire them in a cold frame, where they will be protected from the worst of the weather before they are planted out in the garden some time during April, in ground that is sunny in winter and spring but lightly shaded during the summer months. (I have a raised bed under a

chestnut tree, where other snowdrops grow and multiply, so I am taking that as a favourable barometer reading for the survival of my rarities.)

Why not continue to grow them in pots? Well, snowdrop bulbs hate to dry out completely, which is why we tend to buy them ‘in the green’, and when they are grown in pots there is a danger of total desiccation should

I be away during a hot spell. Provided I can make sure the ground in which they grow is kept free of invasive plants, and is never allowed to go totally short of water, my clumps should fatten year on year and be more reliably perennial.

Time was when snowdrops were either single or double, large (in the case of varieties of Galanthus elwesii) or small (G. nivalis), but now they are available in untold variations – with green spots and stripes, reflexed outer perianth (the correct name for the petals), assorted green patterning of their inner perianth, and some of them have yellow markings rather than green. You see, already ‘galanthofever’ is beginning to overtake me and, aside from leaving my tablet switched off in the evenings rather than sitting with it on my lap and casting an eye to see if I have been outbid, there is no cure other than complete withdrawal from the game.

One day, perhaps they will come up with a vaccination to cure this affliction. Until then, I must exercise control and remember, “When the fun stops, stop.” Easier said than done with snowdrops I reckon.

Named varieties can be bought online for as little as £7.50, but can quickly sail up to the £100 mark and beyond if you are gripped by snowdrop auction fever