Galanthus November 2015

[Maggi Young]

Kindly shared with us  from Bobby J. Ward, Raleigh, NC, United States   :

"And thus the snowdrop, like the bow
That spans the cloudy sky,
Became a symbol, whence, we know
That brighter days are nigh."

Galanthus elwesii var. monostictus at Montrose, Hillsborough, North Carolina, Nov. 22, 2015, with Panayoti Kelaidis, Jan Fahs and Roy C. Dicks.





Photos from 22nd November 2015


This garden is famous and very well-regarded.  Panayoti has said :

Nancy Goodwin  ( is the ) creator of Montrose--America's gem of a garden. I looked forward to her catalogue for so many years (it was the go-to nursery when I began my career in horticulture), and have visited far too infrequently. Nancy and her husband Craufurd, have created the most amazing collection of art and the most beautiful garden imaginable.

[johnstephen29]

Hi mark I grow this galanthus inside, I bought it off Kirsten and Lars over in Denmark and they told me that they can only grow it inside. I just assumed that it was the same here, how does your plant do outside?

[Alan_b]

Galanthus elwesii var. monostictus at Montrose, Hillsborough, North Carolina, Nov. 22, 2015,

I presume this is a mass planting of an autumn-flowering form of galanthus elwesii.  If so, I don't know of anything comparable (at this time of year) anywhere else in the world.  Even in the wild I have never heard tell of a mass of autumn-flowering elwesii.

[johnstephen29]

It's a beautiful site to behold Maggi, thanks for sharing.

[mark smyth]

Hi mark I grow this galanthus inside, I bought it off Kirsten and Lars over in Denmark and they told me that they can only grow it inside. I just assumed that it was the same here, how does your plant do outside?

Both are flowering now. They survived the freeze in 2010

[Maggi Young]

It's a beautiful site to behold Maggi, thanks for sharing.

I've thanked Bobby  for his  permission to share - it's a quite remarkable  thing to see, I agreem John.  I never thought to see such a thing, even in a photo.

[johnstephen29]

Doesn't Ireland have a milder climate than here in England Mark? Might explain why Cilicicus survives with you in Antrim? If it was mass planting Maggi as Alan says there must of been some aching backs

[johnw]

Ken & I went to Montrose in January with Bobby and John Grimshaw back in the 1990's.  An amazing garden with exquisite colour combinations throughout.  Fond memories.

johnw  - an extraordinary amount of rain today...........

[Alan_b]

I'm still marvelling at how anyone could manage to achieve such a large display of what is far from a common snowdrop.  You simply cannot purchase elwesii hiemalis group in large numbers yet starting with just a few it must surely have taken decades of successful propagation to build-up such a large quantity.   

[Maggi Young]

AlanB : Montrose gardens were first begun in the 19th Century, when  owned by a Governor  of the State - Mr and Mrs Goodwin bought the property in 1977 and ran a nursery  there from 1984 to 1993.  It is Mrs Nancy Goodwin who is credited with creating the  substantial and beautiful plantings  in the garden today.
My guess is that the snowdrops arrived there a very long time ago and Mrs Goodwin has  built very successfully upon that.

[Alan_b]

My first named snowdrop purchase was the autumn-flowering Galanthus elwesii 'Peter Gatehouse' which I bought in February 2001.  Fifteen years later, having lost some and given some away but generally been successful, I have about 50 flowers on that snowdrop.  So given the same rate of increase (and more garden than I actually possess) I could aspire to 2,500 by 2031.  But there must be many thousands of snowdrops in the picture so "built very successfully" is almost an understatement.

[Hagen Engelmann]

 very late in November ...

[Alan_b]

Thats a very handsome snowdrop, Hagen, and a very good photograph of it.  I take it that it's one of the many as yet in your sole possession whilst you bulk them up.

[Brian Ellis]

Marvellous Hagen, I like the indentation up the middle of the outer tepal - as the green constricts the tissue?  A most attractive feature

[Hagen Engelmann]

Alan, Brian,

it is in the pipeline already and will go to the next garden this season.
It has very dark green (not blueish green) tips and I would like to see the indentation every year