Benington Lordship Gardens

The gardens are famous for the huge drifts of naturalised Snowdrops that cover most of the moat
and the grounds around the Norman castle and house in February & March - please read more
about the Snowdrops Event at Benington Lordship.

Once overgrown the moat is now carefully managed so the Snowdrops can thrive, the grass is allowed to grow and cut late in the summer once the bulb foliage has died, in the autumn the thick carpet of Sycamore leaves is cleared and composted. The tall Sycamores provide an ideal habitat giving essential shade during hot summer months.

Two species make up the spectacular display, single Snowdrops Galanthus nivalis, and doubles, Galanthus nivalis "flore pleno". More varieties can be found scattered around the garden, a small collection was planted around the fruit trees by the Swimming Pool in the early 1990's.

With the number of varieties increasing every year more room was needed, most of the named varieties are now growing as a labelled collection in the mature shrub borders of the Walled Garden. New borders are being created to allow further expansion and planted with winter interest plants
such as Cornus and Helleborus.

Although there are many hundreds of named varieties many show little variation without close inspection, the Pool area is planted with mainly distinctive plants like Galanthus "Mighty Atom" notable for huge flowers up to two inches across, and the very dainty Galanthus gracilis "Highdown" which has blue tinted twisted leaves and small finely marked flowers.

Over 100 varieties now grow around the garden; many are easily overlooked amongst the masses but worth looking for, recently an unusual yellow form of G. nivalis was found growing near the ruin. Although the Walled Garden is currently closed during the Snowdrop Openings the collection can be seen as part of a guided walk. A photo gallery showing most of our varieties and can be seen here

A full list of named varieties growing in the gardens is below.

Sept 2011: Due to plans to expand the planting of named varieties in several parts of the gardens we will not be selling Snowdrops in 2012, we are always interested in swaps for something we haven't got. Please contact us by email .