Galanthus 'Ding Dong'

Galanthus ‘Ding Dong’ was selected by the late Alan Street at Avon Bulbs, and the name is a playful nod to the old ‘Ding dong, Avon calling’ adverts.  To me, it’s a relatively tall, elegant snowdrop which really stands out in a crowd, thanks largely to its long, pale olive-green ovary.  I do love these lighter ovaries on snowdrops; ‘Sutton Courtenay’, one of my very favourite plants, has an even lighter ovary than ‘Ding Dong’.

The outer segments are relatively thin, and in warmer weather they open up to show the very interesting inner marking: a lighter green ‘V’ over the sinus, with some significantly more faded marks higher up the segment, which can differ slightly from year to year.  It’s a strong grower here and soon makes a good clump, and once the bulbs are settled I sometimes see two scapes coming from each bulb.  All in all, ‘Ding Dong’ is a brilliant early snowdrop, which flowers here in the North West from around mid January.

The monograph tells the story behind it.  In the early 1980s, Avon Bulbs bought a batch of ‘Robin Hood’ bulbs from Alan Ransom, Herbert Ransom’s son, but they turned out not to be ‘Robin Hood’ at all, most likely a seedling, and were never sold under that name.  By 2000 the stock had grown into a good-sized patch that visiting snowdrop lovers kept noticing, and the name ‘Ding Dong’ first appeared in the Avon catalogue in 2001.

Sources
Some of the background here comes from Bishop, Davis & Grimshaw, Snowdrops: A Monograph of Cultivated Galanthus.