Benington Lordship: Snowdrop Mania

Benington Lordship: Snowdrop Mania
18 February 2003

Location	Benington Lordship Gardens, Benington, Hertfordshire. Benington Lordship Gardens show off their snowdrops every year in February. This is a very long page with masses of pictures. Instead of organising them in a more or less chronological fashion as I usually do, they are organised after the motifs instead: Snowdrops Crocuses Hellebores Winter aconites House and Scenery Cat

Weather	Sunny and cold.

Click on the images to see larger versions.


	The stars of the show were the snowdrops, Galanthus nivalis. They're the reason that the garden is open in February at all. I took this picture because I liked the light, particularly the way it filters through the multitude of pristine petals.

This is a double variety. If an ordinary snowdrop looks like an A-line skirt, this is the petticoat variety.

	Some more single snowdrops. The flowers are pretty simple. There are three long petals and three short ones. The short ones have a dent in them and are edged in green.

A closer look at the flowers. You can see the curious green edge very clearly in the flower in the middle.

	I got the impression that the owners of Benington Lordship Gardens had sunk some serious money into snowdrops.

The last snowdrop picture is perhaps not as overwhelming. But it still shows a lot of them.

	Another harbinger of spring - the crocus. All the crocuses on this page are Crocus tommasinianus, sometimes affectionately called Tommy.

Crocus flowers are often called "gobletshaped". In this photo it's easy to see why.

	There are tommies in other colours than lilac but not in Benington Lordship Gardens. I don't blame them, the purple of the petals combined with the orange of pistils and stamens is delectable.

Let's have some more of that combination, shall we?

	And a single flower growing amid the moss.

Some crocuses are sheltering under a shrub.

	Last crocuses for today. As the sun was sinking, it cast patterns of light and shade on the petals.

White hellebores, Helleborus niger, strut their stuff in a pool of light. The "Niger" part of the name refers to the black roots, not the flowers.

	The flowers are a lovely shape with overlapping petals and a generous bunch of pistils in the middle.

The hellebore comes in a number of different shades, even in the wild. These are an intense plum colour.

	A much more cheerful colour is this pink. Unfortunately this picture also shows a problem that a lot of hellebores have, they hide their beautiful flowers, pointing them down to the ground.

I put my camera on the ground and pointed it up to get this picture. Still, the delicate pink shading is to die for.

	Here's another look at that beauty.

A slightly different pink shade.

	Some people prefer dark, brooding colours like this one.

If ever there was a gothy flower, this would be it.

	On a much more cheerful note, these are winter aconites, Eranthis hyemalis.

Winter aconites a la mode. Except the topping is frost, not cream.

	A bed full of the cheerful fellows in yellow.

Winter aconites in the grass in the orchard.

	This "neo-Norman" gate house was built in the nineteenth century as a folly.

If I hadn't known before that the gate house was a folly, this runic inscription would have made me very suspicious. It's very unusual to find conspicuous runic inscriptions in the UK.

	This would also have made me scratch my head. Did the Normans even use armour like this? I thought they were more into chainmail and leather.

A look at the actual house. There is written evidence that there was a castle here as early as the ninth century when king Beortwulf of Mercia visited. The current house was built as a dower house at the beginning of the eighteenth century.

	The veranda is from the early twentieth century. I found the life-size sculpture of a cat charming.

A graceful side door with box in pots on the stair. The vine is probably wisteria.

	What manor house garden would be complete without a lake? This one is pretty big and lightly iced-over.

From the bench by the lake we can see a solitary oak tree on the opposite hill.

	Catkins are surely one of the delights of early spring.

Soft and fuzzy like cats' paws.

	In the vegetable garden, a zink watering can was hanging on the mellow brick wall.

This is a pot for forcing rhubarb. The terracotta pot creates a warm microclimate for the rhubarb underneath. The shoots get long and pale because of the lack of light. You can see some unforced rhubarb sticking up just in front of the pot.

	I think this is an artichoke. Whatever it is, the silver leaves are quite unlike anything else in the garden at this time of year.

I was trying to take a picture of some irises when something grey and stripey plopped itself down in my viewfinder. You can still see the irises, they are wedged between the tabby's tail and butt.

	In the sun, her dark fur was very soft and warm. She also had quite a motor. As much as I love snowdrops and crocuses, they can't hold a candle to a cuddly cat.

In this picture you can see how her purple collar matches the crocuses in the background. I wonder if her humans were trying to colour-coordinate her with the garden, or if it just happened that way.

	Pink nose, green eyes and big ears. How can you not cuddle with someone like this? Evidently I wasn't the only one who thought that. There were lots of people who cooed over her and took her picture. If you're a cuddly cat, living in a public garden must be heaven.