Rare bulbs fetch £162 each
23 February 2010
Galanthophilia – the love of snowdrops – has been sweeping the nation with prices for the rarest bulbs reaching well over £100.
Bidding on the online auction site Ebay has reached fever pitch this spring, with a single bulb of the rare pure white G. reginae-olgae 'Autumn Snow' snapped up for £162. Other prices reached this year include G. nivalis 'Ecusson d'Or', which went for £145.03 for a bulb, and G. plicatus 'Wandlebury Ring', which sold for £123.
Similar prices were also reached at the annual Galanthus Gala, a magnet for galanthophiles at which connoisseur snowdrop bulbs change hands through swaps, plant sales and a hotly-contested auction. This year a bidder paid £150 for G. plicatus Poculiformis Group 'E.A. Bowles' and a bulb of G. elwesii 'Jonathan' went for £100.
'It's gradually been bulding up over the last five or six years,' says Joe Sharman, who organises the Galanthus Gala in between selling snowdrops from his specialist nursery, Monksilver Nursery in Cambridgeshire. 'It's been getting more and more intense – this year I sold out completely within four days, whereas last year it took me three weeks.'
Rare varieties don't appear in growers' catalogues, so collectors are dependent on private growers splitting slow-growing clumps and making them available. Until recently only a small group of enthusiasts have relied on informal swaps and exchanges to add to their collections, but now about 300 people attend the Gala each year including coachloads of Dutch and German buyers intent on finding rarities. Even more galanthophiles are finding an outlet for their hobby through online auctions, where the record price currently stands at £265, paid in 2008 for a bulb of G. nivalis 'Flocon de Neige'.
'We go into each year asking, is this going to be the year it's going to end? But we've been saying that for four years,' says Joe. 'We're just keeping on producing what we can while it's still going.'