2027 Snowdrop Gala

John has grown a wide variety of alpine and woodland plants and bulbs for more than forty years. He is a recipient of the prestigious Alpine Garden Society Gold Medal Award. He has travelled widely to study plants in their natural habitats, particularly Trillium species in the southeastern US. His expertise with cyclamen led to his authoring a chapter on Cyclamen in N. America for “Genus Cyclamen in science, Cultivation, Art and Culture”, published by the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. John has a Ph.D. in Microbiology from University of Newcastle -Upon -Thyne. Since establishing Edgewood Gardens in 1995 he has combined his scientific expertise with his horticultural passion to create a garden that pushes the boundaries of what’s possible in southeastern Pennsylvania.

Snowdrops & Companion Plants
John gardens at "Edgewood”, situated 35 miles west of Philadelphia, in SE Pennsylvania in the NE USA. He will discuss a selection of the extensive collection of fall and late-winter flowering snowdrops he grows in the open garden and greenhouses. Additionally, the presentation will showcase many of the uncommon and beautiful plants which perfectly complement the snowdrops in the garden. Companion plants include spring and fall-flowering Cyclamen, Crocus, Sternbergia and Colchicum, as well as a variety of spring-flowering treasures such as Epimedium, Erythronium, Podophyllum, Arisaema, Corydalis, Trillium, and other less well-known genera. John is particularly interested in pushing the hardiness limits of these plants, and his talk will emphasise methods for their successful cultivation and propagation, especially from seed.

Dr John Grimshaw is a gardening botanist and has a long-standing interest in bulbous plants. He distributed plants from Primrose Warburg’s garden at South Hayes, Oxford, in 1997 and was co-author of Snowdrops A Monograph of Cultivated Galanthus (2002) with Matt Bishop and Aaron Davis. From 2003-2012 he managed the garden at the Elwes family home at Colesbourne Park, Gloucestershire, famous for its mass snowdrop display. He was Director of the Yorkshire Arboretum 2012-24 and is now Editor-in-Chief of both the International Dendrology Society’s digital encyclopaedia Trees and Shrubs Online, and Curtis’s Botanical Magazine for the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. He grows a wide range of plants in his own garden in North Yorkshire.

E.A. Bowles: Inspiring Plantsman
E.A. Bowles (1865-1954) was one of the greatest plantsmen of all time. In this talk John Grimshaw tells how his gardening career has been and continues to be inspired by Bowles books, which celebrate the joy to be found in plants of all kinds. E.A. Bowles gardening legacy and writings remain relevant today and his contribution to the RHS is commemorated in the Bowles corner at their Wisley Garden. At least forty plants named after him are still being offered today. Largely self-taught he was an accomplished artist, entomologist and botanist and an entertaining and knowledgeable writer who travelled widely. He created a remarkable garden at Myddelton House.