NGS Snowdrop Festival heralds spring

The National Garden Scheme (NGS) is hosting its fourth annual Snowdrop Festival throughout January and February 2019.

These delightful plants bring the first signs of Spring and this year over 92 snowdrop gardens will open across England and Wales as part of the National Garden Scheme Festival. Whether you enjoy carpets of naturalised white in woodlands, meticulously grown rare varieties of snowdrops or gardens boasting colourful mixes of snowdrops, hellebores and other early Spring flowers, there is something for galanthophiles and garden enthusiasts alike.

Chief executive of The National Garden Scheme, George Plumptre, says that over the last few years the National Garden Scheme’s Snowdrop Festival has attracted tens of thousands of visitors to gardens throughout January and February: “Snowdrops are the perfect antidote to the winter blues and spending an afternoon at one of our Snowdrop Festival gardens is the ideal opportunity to get outside and enjoy some spectacular scenes at an otherwise depressing time of year,” he says.

This year, snowdrop garden highlights include Welford Park, (pictured banner above) in Berkshire, one of the finest natural snowdrop woodlands in the country. The garden will be familiar to many as the setting for Channel 4’s The Great British Bake Off, which is filmed here.
https://www.ngs.org.uk/find-a-garden/garden/5331/

In Wales, Gelli Uchaf, a smallholding in Carmarthenshire, with an organic 1.5 acre garden welcomes visitors to enjoy trees and shrubs underplanted with hundreds of thousands of snowdrops (200 cultivars and a unique Welsh Snowdrop collection), crocus and other bulbs.
https://www.ngs.org.uk/find-a-garden/garden/21809/

Horkesley Hall in Essex is an 8 acre romantic garden in Colchester offering an evening snowdrop walk on 19th February 2019, when visitors can enjoy the garden by the light of the full moon and twinkling fairy lights.
https://www.ngs.org.uk/find-a-garden/garden/12746/

In Devon, Higher Cherubeer, is a stunning country garden in Winkleigh, which boasts a National Collection of cyclamen species and hellebores as well as over 400 snowdrop varieties (picture above snowdrops in Higher Cherubeer).
https://www.ngs.org.uk/find-a-garden/garden/17164/

Thanks to the generosity of garden owners, volunteers and visitors, the NGS has donated a total of £55 million to nursing and health charities and made a record annual donation of £3.1 million in 2018.

To find your perfect snowdrop garden visit ngs.org.uk

All photographs ©NGS