White Christmas

Over a week of hard frost and snow has put paid to any hope of producing the traditional list of plants in flower on Christmas Day. Flowers on the winter-blooming shrubs have all been zapped, and anything smaller is covered. So it will have to be a New Year's Day list instead.

Galanthus plicatus 'Three Ships' is a reliable Christmas snowdrop, and would be looking good now, were it not bent to the ground by snow. In recent years it has sailed in earlier and earlier and this year popped its buds before the end of November, but as with all snowdrops, its flowers take a while to develop to their full size and shape. This picture was taken about ten days ago, of the clump in my garden.