Peak snowdrop

It’s peak season for snowdrop spotting at the moment.  Gardens big and small, from great estates to diminutive English cottages, are all opening up their gardens to keen gardeners and passionate galanthophiles.

As well as admiring great swathes that carpet woodland floors and forgotten corners, many keen visitors are bending down on hands and knees to inspect some of the rarer forms.  Often bred by specialists, these display unusual markings - golds instead of greens, tall ones, short ones, fat ones, some double flowered, some single.  Most of the rarer varieties can be purchased for a few pounds, maybe £20 or £30.  It’s the new introductions that can often create a frenzy of interest.  In 2015 a yellow form named ‘Golden Fleece’ achieved a record breaking price of £1,390 for a single bulb.  Seven years later another yellow example, ‘Golden Tears’, eclipsed that price by nearly £500, achieving a record that still stands today - £1,850.

Eyes are on this year's new entrants.  At the time of writing nothing has come close but there’s still plenty of time for an attractive new upstart to surge towards the finishing line.  Now where's that credit card?