Who can resist snowdrops? Not me, anyway! Every year I try and plant a few in my garden, longing for great drifts of them under the trees, but they just don't like my soil. I've got the 'well-drained' and 'plenty of humus' requirements, but fear I lack the 'moist', on my Bagshot sand. It doesn't stop me trying a little pot full every year though. Maybe one day I'll find the perfect spot, for perfect low maintenance planting.

Snowdrops remind me of my childhood, and the first great picnic expedition of the year, to go 'Snowdropping'. We would pack into Dad's car and drive to 'our secret spot' in the Dorset countryside, where a hazel wood was full of carpets of white, ready for our eager mitts to pick by the handful. Perish the thought now. Snowdrops, and the great British tradition of a picnic in the car, made a treat of an afternoon out, never mind the cold.

Apparently, if you ring the bell of the first snowdrop you see in the new year, it brings you luck. Or so said Enid Blyton, and I'm not one to argue with her. (Where would we be without The Famous Five?) So maybe I'll give this pot full a good shaking when I plant it, and this time I might be lucky and might get the start of a carpet.....or a rug at least!