The garden has a range of some 200 varieties of snowdrops delighting galanthophiles. Drifts of Galanthus 'S. Arnott' and 'Atkinsii' under trees interspersed with cyclamen gave a true feeling of Spring promise. Two greenhouses house pots of special snowdrops like 'Trumps' and species cyclamen. Seeing the cyclamen reminded me how at the Tavistock Plant Fair last year I had kept on over-hearing people commenting on how lovely the display of Jo Hynes' cyclamen were. It was a rare sunny day, and the sunlight lit up the growth on the pollarded willows under which there were more drifts of snowdrops and some very pretty self-seeded hellebores. Seeing the snowdrops planted in labelled clumps made it easy to start to see the differences between the named varieties, although some like 'Wasp' and 'Wind Turbine' are obviously outstanding to even the less-initiated.

The gardens at Higher Cherubeer are open again under the National Garden Scheme on Friday, February 14th from 2pm to 5pm, and again later in the year. The Tavistock Spring Plant Fair is on Sunday, March 16th.