Galanthus Hippolyta - Snowdrop

The Double Snowdrop or Galanthus 'Hippolyta' is a beautiful variety with solitary double white flowers that appear from the end of winter. The outer petals of the tear-shaped flowers surround carefully shaped inner petals, strongly marked with green. Remember to plant your snowdrops before December, when the bulbs are dormant, they will give you a nice surprise from the end of January. They can also be forced in pots for Christmas flowering. Plant them in a cool rockery, in clear undergrowth or along the edge, near the house to admire them up close. They naturalise easily and quickly in the garden.

Galanthus nivalis is a perennial herbaceous bulb of the amaryllidaceae family, native to central and southern Europe, which heralds the arrival of spring. 'Hippolyta', probably of hybrid origin, is a variety cultivated by H. A. Greatorex of Norwich, England, in the 1940s, still highly sought after by galanthophiles. It forms a lovely clump, 15 cm high from winter, composed of ribbon-like, rather dark green leaves with a touch of grey, from which one to two stems per bulb emerge from late January to March depending on the climate, each carrying a 4 cm wide flower, borne outward from the clump and inclined toward the ground. The flowers are formed by 3 to 5 airy white, rounded sepals topping a small central white corolla composed of 12 to 21 short petals, with the outer ones having a green V-shaped mark at the end of the petals while the inside is marked with green on almost its entire surface. The flowers are slightly fragrant and nectar-rich, with a few rare thread-like and abnormally shaped stamens, producing little or no pollen. The foliage turns yellow and disappears at the end of spring.

Galanthus 'Hippolyta' is one of the first flowers to appear in late winter, just before or at the same time as Crocus chrysanthus, the Christmas roses and the squills. It will thrive in a cool rockery, alongside creeping bugles, an easy-to-grow fern called Blechnum penna-marina, plants that will occupy the space without smothering the snowdrops once the foliage has disappeared. It is also a good plant for light undergrowth that precedes the flowering of bleeding hearts and corydalis. In cool climates, it tolerates sunny exposures along the edge of a bed. It also grows very well in pots. Snowdrops can be planted almost anywhere, but they do not like long dry summers.