Fortified by lunch at the Thames Head, I took friends, Lyn and Sarah, to the second snowdrop garden of the day, Rodmarton Manor, just a short distance away from Cotswold farm, and also absolutely wonderful. The Arts and Crafts house is a perfect backdrop for the beautiful garden. The house was built for Claud and Margaret Biddulph between 1909- 1929 and is still home to John and Sarah Biddulph fourth and fifth generations of Biddulphs to live in the house.
They also have a fantastic selection of snowdrops; with a printed guide handed out to us on arrival. I loved this display of snowdrops outside the cafe area:
I'm not sure what variety of snowdrop these are, possibly one of the G. Tryms
A lovely view of the garden by the house
Above G. Modern Art
This is a view of the garden at the side of the house where when struggling to identify snowdrops from the handout, we met a group of three people looking at the snowdrops. They were kind enough to identify 'G. Diggory' for us and were looking at G. Jessica named after the lady who was in the group, she was wearing a snowdrop brooch and scarf. This was very exciting and certainly added great interest to our day. We discovered Jessica's husband is Phil Cornish, who also has a snowdrop named after him: G, 'Phil Cornish', he also appears in the front of the Freda Cox 'A Gardener's Guide to Snowdrops' as a leading person in the snowdrop field. I tried to get a photo of the group, but they are behind a bush!!
Above the entrance to the long borders with the summerhouse at the end
This bed containing snowdrops and Hellebores was lovely
Lovely summerhouse at the end of the long borders
This one above was very strange, it's G.nivalis f.plentiflorus 'Walrus', according to Freda cox, it's 'unusual very variable pendent double flowers with a flattened sometimes split spathe. Outer segments long, thin resembling a walrus tusks.'
the wonderfully easy to spot, just now at least, 'Diggory'
Above G elwesii Marjorie Brown
I love the front view of the house with the circular lawn where in the summer, Rare Plant Fairs have been held.
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