Heritage Collection
How it started
February 2014 saw the launch of the Shaftesbury Snowdrops Heritage Collection.
As part of our snowdrop legacy project, we wanted to bring together Galanthus species, hybrids and their cultivars to be held in trust in Shaftesbury for the enjoyment of locals and visitors during the Shaftesbury Snowdrop Season. And so, our Heritage Collection was launched.
Community project
The Heritage Collection began as a true community project, with a team of volunteers maintaining the bulbs in gardens throughout the town. By spreading out the collection in this way, we were able to maximise public involvement and minimise risk to the collection of loss through disease or damage.
Volunteers cared for and propagated the snowdrops in the collection to ensure that in time we would have bulbs of each donated variety growing in several secure sites.
In 2018, through the generosity of a local family and with the Support of BV Dairy, we have established a small snowdrop nursery in the town centre, where we hope to maintain and develop part of the collection and use this site for education.
On display in Shaftesbury Town
To date we have welcomed visitors to view curated pots of flowering snowdrops in the grounds of Shaftesbury Abbey.
This beautiful setting has its own show of snowdrops, with a naturalised swathe of Galanthus nivalis, which may date back to the time of the first snowdrops being brought to the country.
In addition, we planted Galanthus elwesii, Galanthus woronowii , Galanthus ‘S. Arnott’ and Galanthus viridipice in separate areas to enable our visitors to compare the different species.
The future
It is hoped that the Heritage Collection will allow many wonderful snowdrops to be preserved in our own town.
If you would like to sponsor or donate a snowdrop variety please contact the Snowdrop team at info@shaftesburysnowdrops.org
Heritage Collection photographs are courtesy of/copyright Rachel Diment.
