Month: April 2008

Update [4/6/2008]: As my good friend Carol points out in the comments, Hitch will be speaking on snowdrops in Ithaca on the Cornell campus at the next meeting of the Adirondack Chapter of the North American Rock Garden Society (ACNARGS) on April 19. Find details on the ACNARGS blog. (I am the ACNARGS newsletter editor/webmaster/publicist. You’d think I wouldn’t need to be reminded. Thanks Carol.)

I had the great fortune to make it to the Open Day sponsored by the Garden Conservancy at Hitch Lyman’s garden between Ithaca and Trumansburg today. Hitch is a world-reknowned Galanthus grower, cultivating 400+ varieties outside his 1848 Greek Revival house.

I promised Kathy Purdy, who has posted several times about Hitch over at Cold Climate Gardening, that I would shoot some pictures for her while she was down at the garden bloggers convention in Austin. Below is a quick edit, with a string of snowdrop pictures at the end. (I might be able to figure out some of the cultivar names. But I was running about 10 minutes behind the group shooting pictures most of the time.)

Hitch (right rear with the turquoise sweater) answered questions for visitors from near and far, experts and newbies. That’s Alan Street in the black suit from Avon Bulbs in England, who as far as I can tell won the award for longest trip to this particular Open Day.

Hitch’s 1848 Greek Revival house (sideview) is a gem, too.

The fountain and stone work provide simple structure in the side yard.

Out back, across a small pond, is a Greek Temple folly that echoes the architecture of the house.

According to a visitor I talked to beside the fireplace in the Temple, Hitch got the chandelier hanging from the ceiling in Venice.

I had to leave before the gourmet meal was served back in the house. But I grabbed a quick picture of the snowdrop flowers on the kitchen mantel.

From here on out, it’s just snowdrops — which I admittedly don’t know much about. I’ve only got your garden variety Galanthus nivalis here and there. I like them good enough. And it’s not hard to see how someone like Hitch could get passionate about them. The variety of leaf shapes and sizes, green markings, and colored collars and combinations thereof is pretty amazing.