A remote Welsh garden full of inspiration for early spring planting

As the days imperceptibly lengthen in January and February, the garden at Gelli Uchaf is slowly awakening. Swathes of snowdrops spill down the slopes and line the paths at this remote Welsh hillside site, providing a silvery-white backdrop to clusters of crocus, cyclamen and hellebores in the rich hues of an antique rug. This early flowering is the start of a year of intensive bloom, carefully orchestrated by owners Fiona and Julian Wormald to provide as much interest as possible from January to December - for themselves but also for the bees and other pollinating insects that visit. 'We were inspired by Claude Monet's garden at Giverny and its densely intermingled plants that attract so many insects,' says Fiona. 'We're always looking for gaps in the flowering and trying to plug them, so the garden is constantly evolving.'

Fiona and Julian have been working on the garden ever since they bought what was a derelict 17th-century longhouse and its 11-acre smallholding, which includes a 1.5-acre garden, 30 years ago. They began by creating a large terrace in front of the house, then gradually worked outwards, adding a croquet lawn, shrub and perennial borders, a vegetable garden and a sloping woodland copse. With challenging conditions - very high rainfall, an exposed hillside site and poor soil - they felt their way in terms of planting to see what worked, moving towards a naturalistic, multi-layered scheme using insect-friendly perennials, shrubs and bulbs to maximise flower numbers throughout the year.

Some of the early-spring bulbs are crucial in providing nectar for pollinators when all else is dormant. The snowdrops are the first to emerge, pushing their way valiantly through the ground to greet the new year. Fiona and Julian have amassed a collection of over 150 varieties, including covetable, named ones like ‘Maximus’ and 'Primrose Warburg', as well as many unnamed local snowdrops from historic gardens in the area. 'I started my Welsh snowdrop project to find varieties that would be adapted to the local climate and conditions,' explains Julian. 'It's fascinating - each one comes with its own story and provenance.' Many, especially the Welsh ones, will spread by seeding around, increasing the colonies rapidly. Others are increased by division. Julian has found an ingenious way to do this quickly, using a Finnish Pottiputki tool, designed for planting tree seedlings: 'You can plant 500 snowdrops or crocus in an hour.' He has also found a way to speed up the naturalisation of Crocus tommasinianus by harvesting the seeds in April. 'People don't realise the seedpods are there in the grass because they emerge from the ground and not the spent flower,' he observes. 'It's a great way to introduce them to other parts of the garden.'