Country diary: Snowdrops in abundance, but the dry winter has taken its toll | Virginia Spiers

St Dominic, Tamar Valley, Cornwall: A mixed picture here, with low streams and dried-up moss - but also my favourite gardening job of early springThe strengthening sun casts tree shadows across swaths of snowdrops in this former market garden. A succession of old types of narcissi emerge each year in their original rows and plots but, 45 years ago, there were no snowdrops here apart from a few dainty, late flowerers in a hedgebank.Since then, my favourite gardening job in early spring has been to split the snowdrops and spread them about, "in the green" (before the leaves die back), as the flowers fade. Friends and relatives have donated surplus plants from old orchards and overgrown gardens, so there are early tall and shorter singles, and several double varieties, all of which used to be picked, bunched with ivy leaves and sent away to urban markets. Continue reading...