How to Transplant Snowdrops

Snowdrops, true to their name, bloom very early in the year, even in the snow. But by the time the weather warms up they have finished their annual show and already are underground and dormant. It is hard to find them. Here's the way to redesign the snowdrop plantings while they are still fresh and green.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• live snowdrops (Galanthus nivalis)
• trowel or small shovel
• outdoor garden space

1. Locate snowdrops in bloom, maybe in your own yard or your mother's.
2. Decide where in the garden you would like to have them come up. Since they bloom so early, they show up best near a walkway, entrance, or driveway. They will need planting holes 5 to 6 inches deep.
3. Check the ground. If it is not frozen, you can dig up clumps of snowdrops to transplant. To start, just use a trowel or small shovel to dig up one or two clumps. Dig straight down, making sure to get all the white bulbs and roots without cutting them. These usually go down about 5 to 6 inches below the soil line.
4. Set the clumps in a dishpan or on some newspaper. If they are very thick (20 or so bulbs or more) carefully pull them apart into smaller groups of five or six bulbs. Plant each small cluster in a new planting hole with good garden soil, at the same depth or a little deeper than the way it grew.
5. Bring the soil over and around the bulbs, leaving the tops showing just as they did before you moved them. Press the soil down and water.
6. If you have worked carefully, the little hardy plants will not even notice that anything has happened, and will happily keep right on blooming. They'll come up year after year in their new place. This process is called moving them "in the green."

Tips & Warnings

• Want to increase your snowdrops rapidly without buying more? Let them go to seed. The seeds form in ball-shaped seed capsules about half an inch long. When they are ripe the capsules turn yellow and can be strewn around where you want the new plants. It takes a couple of years for them to go from seed to bloom.
• Are snowdrops hardy where you live? They need cold winters and do best in USDA planting zones 3 to 8 and similar locations around the world.