When my family visited us for my birthday last month they brought several useful presents including an unexpected gift from a friend who is now living in their vicinity. The attached note said that the two pots contained lily of the valley. I remembered that she had told us her new garden was overrun with it and she promised to send some when she was tidying up.
Following a gardening tip in one of the weekend broadsheets my husband potted them up again, ready for them to bloom early in the spring and fill the house with fragrance. They began in our potting shed and then sat in the relatively cool environment of our kitchen windowsill next to the miniature daffodils and blue Scylla as we waited.
Sure enough, leaves were followed by white buds. I noted that strangely there was a single hanging bud on each stem instead of the bells that I associate with lily of the valley.
My husband decided that the kitchen window was no longer suitable for the daffodils and replanted all the bulbs outside in a container outside the patio window. I paused to admire his handiwork and saw them for the first time.
It is remarkable that however long you look at a snowdrop; it will never metamorphose into a lily of the valley.
