Ursula Buchan

Winter drifts

What is it with snowdrops? Why do people make so much fuss about them, when they are so small and relatively insignificant?

issue 21 February 2009

What is it with snowdrops? Why do people make so much fuss about them, when they are so small and relatively insignificant? These are questions that mystify people each February, as they view yet more images in newspapers or gardening magazines of chilly, brilliant white, droopy flowers on short stalks.

I have, in the past, been equally stumped. However, gradually, two or three positive aspects of snowdrops have dawned on me, not all of which have anything to do with the flowers themselves. The first thing to note is that they flower (in the public mind, at least) mainly in January and February when there is not much else flowering (in the public mind, at least). Once newspapers took to printing colour images, and gardening magazines to publishing winter issues, there was always going to be a considerable, and sometimes undue, emphasis on flowers which, though individually insignificant, were certainly hardy and dependable and easily aggregated into large-scale drifts.

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