"Avon Calling"

The arrival of the postie with a parcel in his hands has cheered up an otherwise dismal and most wet January morning. The delivery contained three snowdrops from the excellent Avon Bulbs. If you have been visiting my blog for a while you will know that I am rather partial to these early flowering beauties. I would not call myself a galanthophile but given the financial wherewithal I could slide down that slippery route.  I am very slowly trying to build up my small collection which was decimated over the last couple of years. I wrote about them in their glory days here and then about the travesty that befell them here.

Inside the package were 'drops to replace ones that I had before but lost in the big freeze ~ 'Robin Hood', the definitely different 'Blewbury Tart' and the Greatorex double 'Ophelia'. I shall be heading to the greenhouse later to pot them up. However my long term intentions are to move away from keeping them in pots to planting them in the ground. I was initially reluctant to do this because of our squirrel population, but my losses were due to the fact that the bulbs in pots could not cope with two long and hard consecutive winters. I knew that I was taking a risk by planting them in pots but still I got a good few years innings from them before winter stopped play.

As you can see Avon Bulb's packaging is excellent. I have ordered from them several times before and have always been impressed by the quality of plants, packaging and also by the lovely lady in their office, who I have spoken to on the telephone several times over the years. Tucked into the box was a sample of one of their snowdrop greetings cards ~ I feel myself going weak at the knees.