2025 Galanthus Gala

Friends Meeting House, Downingtown, PA.

David Culp’s world famous Galanthus Gala, featuring three superb lectures and a wide variety of vendors selling an incredible array of plants. Visit http://brandywine-cottage.square.site/ to register.

EVENT SCHEDULE

Friday, February 28, 2025 – All events on Friday are VIRTUAL!

4-6pm VIRTUAL Happy Hour and Lecture (Ticket Required)
4-4:15pm Opening Remarks with David Culp
4:15pm Lecture – Connections: Norfolk Snowdrops, Places and People with Brian Ellis
A potted history of the county in the history of snowdrops, the galanthophiles I have met in the last 25 years and where their snowdrops have been found. Concentrating on the Norfolk snowdrop section of my collection.
5:15-6pm Happy Hour Networking

Saturday, March 1, 2025 – Virtual and In-Person

Doors Open at 9am for Early Entry to Vendors (Ticket Required)
10am-3:30pm Shopping is Open with the Vendors
11am Lecture (Ticket Required) Snowdrops: A Fifty-year Love Affair with Andy Byfield
From his mid-teens when he met the great plantswoman Primrose Warburg, Andy has always been passionate about snowdrops. His Galanthus journey has taken him both across the gardens of southern England and the mountainous wilds of Turkey. His talk will introduce some of his better introductions such as ‘Andrea’s Fault’, ‘Fridge Magnet’, ‘Lemongrass’, and ‘Northern Lights’, as well as highlighting some of his favorite garden snowdrops. The talk will briefly mention his ten year stint in Turkey encouraging village families to replace wild collection with artificial production, and will describe his current attempts to create a snowdrop garden in Devon (in south-west England).
12:30pm Live Auction
2pm Lecture (Ticket Required) Wild Gardening with Bulbs at Gravetye Manor and How I Became a Galanthophile with Tom Coward
We will start with the history of how William Robinson popularized naturalizing bulbs in different parts of the garden. Then we will look at how his plantings survive today at Gravetye and how we manage them, touching on Tulip, Narcissus, Cammasia and some of the autumn flowering bulbs. Finally we will talk about the snowdrops we inherited at Gravetye and how cultivating these led us to developing a collection.
3pm Closing Remarks with David Culp

**A block of rooms is available at Home2 Suites in Downingtown. Click here for discounted registration. **

Our Vendors

·       Bondsville Mill
·       Brandywine Cottage
·       Cavano’s Perennials
·       Edgewood Gardens
·       Hardy Plant Society – Mid-Atlantic Group
·       Hort and Pott
·       Issima
·       Look Again Garden
·       Matthew and Jamie Bricker
·       O’Brien Nursery
·       Pleasant Run Nursery
·       Putnam Hill Nursery
·       Rabbit Hole Plants
·       Restore Our Roots
·       Scratching Post Gardens
·       Sorta Suburbia
·       Twining Gardens
·       Winterthur

About Our Speakers

Brian Ellis
Retiring from teaching, due to ill health after 26 years, I started to garden in earnest when things began to improve. My partner David also decided to retire at the same time and we have created a garden together around our seventeenth century estate worker’s cottage. We belong to a number of horticultural related societies, judge shows and contribute to their newsletters, etc.

Andy Byfield
Andy Byfield is a member of the Royal Horticultural Society’s Bulb Expert Group and a keen grower of smaller bulbs, with a particular interest in snowdrops, smaller daffodils, and Erythronium. He spent the 1990’s in Turkey, both establishing artificial production of snowdrops amongst village families, and studying the country’s remarkable flora: whilst there, he added c. 30 plants new to the Turkish flora, including the diminutive Fritillaria byfieldii. Outside horticulture, he takes an avid interest in British plants and their place in our landscapes, and is a founder of the wild plant conservation charity Plantlife.

Tom Coward
Tom Coward has worked as a gardener since the age of 15, studying at RHS Wisley, Pershore College, and Kew Gardens, before working as assistant gardener in Sussex (at one of Sir Paul McCartney’s properties), followed by gardening jobs in New Zealand and France, and a three-year stint as assistant to Fergus Garrett at Great Dixter, before assuming the head gardener position at Gravetye Manor. At Gravetye Tom leads the gardening team responsible for the restoration and maintenance of the gardens and grounds of the former home (now hotel) of William Robinson, an influential gardener, journalist and author of the late 19th and early 20th century, whose books include The Wild Garden and The English Flower Garden. The Gravetye gardens, on some 35 acres around the manor, include extensive borders, a walled kitchen garden which supplies the hotel, meadows, and orchards.