In the drear days of grey winter, nothing lifts the heart like the white heads of snowdrops.
So much promise in those simple buds...
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| Courtesy of Interflora |
This year I want to go on a snowdrop walk. There are lots of places to go.
The Telegraph have some suggestions in their guide 'Best Places to see Snowdrops 2013'
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| Snowdrops at Ickworth House, Suffolk |
This is Ickworth House itself.
Chelsea Physic Gardens are having eight special snowdrop days, starting tomorrow, and running till the Sunday after next.
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| Website |
There are guided walks, talks, painting and printing workshops, some of which are free. Oh, and you can buy snowdrops to brighten your own garden too!
For an England- and Wales-wide list of possible gardens to visit, try the National Gardens Scheme website. Through this I have found the one I do SO hope to get to next week, Pembury House, which is six miles north of Brighton.
Snowdrops and hellebores. Just perfect!
Here are some recommendations from my comments section, with links:
Kingston Lacy (National Trust, near Wimborne, Dorset) recommended by ted and bunny
Hodsock Priory (Blythe, Nottinghamshire) recommended by Carol of Smile at the Flowers
Anglesey Abbey and Lode Mill (National Trust, near Cambridge) recommended by Patricia of A Place for Everything
The Rococo Garden at Painswick and Colesbourne Gardens (both in Gloucestershire) recommended by Rosemary of Where Five Valleys Meet
I'll finish with the words of William Wordsworth.
To a snowdrop
Lone flower, hemmed in with snows, and white as they
But hardier far, once more I see thee bend
Thy forehead as if fearful to offend,
Like an unbidden guest. Though day by day
Storms, sallying from the mountain-tops, waylay
The rising sun, and on the plains descend;
Yet art thou welcome, welcome as a friend
Whose zeal outruns his promise! Blue-eyed May
Shall soon behold this border thickly set
With bright jonquils, their odours lavishing
On the soft west-wind and its frolic peers;
Nor will I then thy modest grace forget,
Chaste snowdrop, venturous harbinger of Spring,
And pensive monitor of fleeting years!
