Create a garden that shines through the forgotten season

It is the earliest flowers of all that stir the already restless gardener's soul, and the snowdrop is often the first to appear en masse. Keen gardeners will travel miles to enjoy a sweep of the common snowdrop (Galanthus nivalis), however bleak the weather. And if tulipomania gripped Dutch gardeners in the 17th century, arousing avarice and greed, galanthophilia has replaced it in the present day.

Indeed, I have seen many a rugged male pluck a small mirror from his jacket pocket and place it underneath a flower in order to fully admire the inner markings, or they get down on bended knee as if in homage. The following flowers could be with you by midwinter if the weather is sufficiently mild.

Snowdrops and snowflakes

If this is your first attempt at growing snowdrops, start off with the common Galanthus nivalis, the ones you often see in churchyards, as these are the most reliable and least expensive of all snowdrops. There is a single form (known simply as G. nivalis) and a double form (labelled G. nivalis 'Flore Pleno').

You can buy common snowdrops 'in the green', in their hundreds, in early spring. Simply separate the clumps and plant them in a semi-shaded place, preferably in groups of three. When the clump looks full (this usually takes about three years), separate the plants, carefully lifting them just as the flowers fade, and then replant them somewhere else in the garden. Once you have succeeded with the easiest snowdrop of all, progress to the more expensive specialist varieties.

The tall, elegant single snowdrop Galanthus 'Atkinsii' has narrow white outer petals that open widely, reminding me of an open tripod set at 45 degrees. This is early, upright and slender, and is generally one of the first to finish flowering, so place it somewhere towards the back, where the dying foliage won't mar later-flowering plants. Another fine, tall, single snowdrop is 'Magnet'. Each single snowdrop bloom is suspended from a fine arc of long, wiry stem. It's often possible to spot 'Magnet' just by the way the graceful, curved stems and flowers tremble and flutter in the slightest breeze.

The greyer-leaved Galanthus elwesii is a robust, variable single snowdrop from Turkey, and there are many handsome named forms. It tends to be relatively upright, because the leaves are held together tightly by a papery sheath at ground level. If you were to cut through the leafy base, the leaves would be arranged in rings, rather like a leek. The flowers are held on stiff stems at a shy, downward-facing angle. They usually have two heavy mid-green markings, an upper bar and a lower inverted 'V', and are topped with dark green oval ovaries. Each bulb is large, almost the size of a miniature daffodil (maddeningly, sometimes very big bulbs can produce insignificant, tiny flowers). All greyer-leaved snowdrops are happiest in a more open position at the front of a woodland area.

Galanthus woronowii is a low-growing snowdrop, which is being imported from Georgia in large numbers. It has relatively wide, emerald-green leaves and small, globular, bright white single flowers. It keeps its shiny, green leaves well and they are a wonderful foil for slightly later-flowering plants.

You may also be able to find G. plicatus, another snowdrop with wide green leaves, often faintly vertically striped in lighter grey-green. If you look at the reverse side of the leaves, at the base where they emerge from the bulb, you will see that the outer edges are pleated backwards, giving rise to the species name, plicatus, meaning pleated.

This is a vigorous snowdrop that is good in shade and strong enough to push though ground-cover planting, such as ivy or vinca, to display its white single flowers. The outer petals often have a seer-sucker texture, and the inners usually have one green mark. I've also seen this snowdrop growing in grass in the wild. 'Wendy's Gold', with yellow markings, was originally found growing in low grass among a large colony on the top of Wandlebury Ring, near Cambridge. Many snowdrops with yellow markings are shy to increase, but 'Wendy's Gold' is an exception.

Galanthus 'S. Arnott' is a giant single snowdrop that can reach up to 25cm (10in) on good soil. The pendant, pearl-drop flowers open widely and smell of honey, and many a gardener has been seduced by its beauty, size and sweet fragrance. It has a very deep green, heart-shaped mark on the lowest edge of the inner petals and elegant lines. A large colony of 'S. Arnott' once grew near Stroud and the bulbs were lifted and sold by The Giant Snowdrop Company in the years following World War II.'S. Arnott' caught the public imagination and even made the front pages of the newspaper. It rekindled interest in snowdrops, inspiring a fresh band of galanthophiles (as snowdrop-lovers have come to be known) in the 1960s.

It's a good idea to have some double-flowered snowdrops as well as elegant singles, but choose carefully as some can be ragged and untidy once you lift the flowers upwards and gaze into their middles. Heyrick Greatorex, an amateur breeder from Brundell, Norfolk, set about breeding a whole series of fine, tall, strong-growing doubles from the 1930s until his death in 1954. Most of his cultivars have Shakespearian or Classical names. There is Galanthus 'Jacquenetta', 'Dionysus', 'Titania', 'Cordelia', 'Desdemona', 'Ophelia' and 'Hippolyta'. Greatorex doubles are excellent in the garden setting. You can identify them by their stance - a tall, strong stem with a small, full flower perched on top. The shallowness of the flower in comparison to the length of the stem is also a Greatorex double trademark. On examination, each flower has a shallow tutu of tight inners, surrounded by shortish, outer petals. The markings are dark holly green, and these similar Greatorex varieties are difficult to tell apart.

The low-growing apricot and white flowers of the capricious G. nivalis f. pleniflorus 'Lady Elphinstone' can (and do) revert to plain green. But when she's behaving well, she's a lovely addition, with her egg-yolk markings. You might also be able to find G. 'Lady Beatrix Stanley', an early snowdrop with distinctive grey-green leaves and wide flowers, likened to a molar tooth in shape, and held on short stems. There are also lots of misshapen, freakish snowdrops, including the fanged Galanthus 'Walrus' and the 'Green Horror', also known as 'Boyd's Double'. This love of the aberrant can be traced back to the greatest galanthophile of all, Edward Augustus Bowles (1865-1954). Bowles housed a great number of odd and weird plants in his 'lunatic asylum', which can still be seen today in his Myddleton House garden, at Bull's Cross, near Enfield in Middlesex. But the best of the misshapen snowdrops found in recent times is the cheeky G. nivalis f. pleniflorus 'Blewbury Tart'. This tight double is dark green and white, and each frilled flower looks upward at a cock-eyed angle. It's good at bulking up, flowers very well and is low-growing. It was discovered in 1975 by English nurseryman Alan Street, who grew up in Blewbury, Oxfordshire. I'm sure that Edward Bowles would have thoroughly approved of this coquettish little flower.

If you're thinking of growing snowdrops, don't forget to include their close relation, the spring-flowering snowflake, Leucojum vernum, which often flowers with the snowdrop. It is slightly larger than a snowdrop and usually bears two crinoline- or bell-shaped flowers. Each of the six white petals is tipped in green. Like all leucojums, it is happiest in moist soil. Divide the clumps when necessary, just as you do with snowdrops. There is also a leucojum with yellow tips on the petals, L. vernum var. carpathicum, although I have not found this as strong or enduring as the green-tipped species.

Jaunty, swept-back cyclamen

The best way to introduce early cyclamen into your garden is to buy pot-grown Cyclamen coum in winter and plant them out. Again, just as with snowdrops, there are many named forms and subspecies, but when trying anything for the first time, always opt for a standard form. You will only need five potfuls of cyclamen to begin with, because they all set seed. The resulting curious seedpods are held on coiled, corkscrew-like stems, rather like a miniature dog whelk's purse washed up on a beach. These round cyclamen purses open in summer, and the seeds are easy to collect; you can actually hear them rattling when they're ripe. Seeds should be sown straight away.

You can either sprinkle them straight onto the ground by hand, or you can sow them in a greenhouse or cold frame: place the seeds on the surface in a pot of well-drained compost, then cover them with a layer of fine grit. If you forget to collect any seeds, don't worry; the ants will disperse them for you - you'll be amazed at where they come up.

My favourite named form is Cyclamen coum f. coum 'Maurice Dryden'. Each white flower has a magenta nose and the rounded, silvered leaves are finely edged in dark green. Maurice sets seed, producing plants almost identical in form. The only other kind I've succeeded in keeping in the garden for several years is C. repandum. The tall, willowy flowers have long, swept-back petals, usually in pink, and the leaves are almost scalloped in shape. I have tucked this in dry shade, under a thorn tree, and it has endured well.

Excerpted from The Winter Garden by Val Bourne, priced £16.99, published by Cassell Illustrated.