NEWS RELEASE
14 January 2025
Spring is in the air as Snowdrop Fair returns to Hole Park
The country might be in the grip of winter but there's a hint of Spring on the horizon as the popular Snowdrop & Spring Plant Fair returns to Hole Park on Sunday 2 February 2025.
In the first event of this year's Plant Fair Roadshow, more than a dozen dedicated growers and nurseries from across the South East will be selling speciality snowdrops - the cheery heralds of Spring - hellebores, daphnes, aconites and other winter flowering plants.
The Plant Fair Roadshow organisation brings together some of the most knowledgeable specialist plant nursery men and women in the region, sharing their not-for-profit cooperation, pooling resources and friendships to provide reliable and unusual plants for keen gardeners.
The Snowdrop & Spring Plant Fair at Hole Park is open from11am to 3pm.Tickets are available to prebook at £8 per Adult and £2.50 per child (Age 5-17). Well-behaved dogs are welcome as long as they are kept on a short lead.
Tickets include entry to the gardens: a rare opportunity to see their normally hidden structure, laid bare by winter, along with the very first signs of Spring. This includes not only several varieties of snowdrop but also bright yellow Wintersweet; varieties of Prunus and early flowering Camelias.
Tickets include entry to the gardens
Photo: Alison Miles
Hole Park's own gardening team will be on hand to answer gardening queries, and the Coach House Tea Room will be open for takeaway refreshments.
Booking is via the events page on the Hole Park website -www.holepark.com
Details of growers and nurseries attending the 2025 event can be found on the Roadshow website: https://www.plant-fairs.co.uk/events/snowdrop-spring-fair-hole-park-garden/
Snowdrop snippets
- A collective noun for snowdrops is ‘a hope', literally symbolising the promise of Spring as they emerge to flower in the depths of winter
- Snowdrops can begin to appear in the first few weeks of the New Year and are the birth flower for those born in January
- Their official name is Galanthus and gardeners who love these plants are called Galanthophiles
- Snowdrops are not native to Britain; they were brought here from Europe and the Middle East as exotic specimens in the 16thcentury
- Snowdrops werefirst recorded in the wild in Gloucestershire and Worcestershire in 1778
- There are about 20 different species of snowdrop, the most common of which areGalanthus nivalis, Galanthus elwesii and Galanthus plicatus
- People lucky enough to have a snowdrop named after them are referred to as The Immortals
-ends-
For further information please contact: Alison Miles, Press Office, Hole Park Estate, Benenden Road, Rolvenden, Kent TN17 4JA
E:pressoffice@holepark.com M: 07900 691116
Notes to Editors:
Nestled in 200 acres of classic English parkland,Hole Park is a hidden gem of the High Weald National Landscape. It has been owned by the Barham family for the past four generations, having been purchased as a family home by Edward Barham's Great Grandfather, Colonel Arthur Barham, in 1911. In the mid-1920s the Colonel made the bold decision to share the beauty of his recently-created gardens by opening them to the public: a tradition that is maintained to the present day. Over the decades, each succeeding generation has improved and innovated the layout and planting in the gardens.
The current custodians, Edward and Clare Barham, moved into Hole Park with their three children and dogs in 2003. Since then, they have undertaken a comprehensive re-planting program of the garden which reflects and enhances the Colonel's original plans from the 1920s. Edward and Clare both take an active role in managing the gardens. This includes public opening days, so they are often found selling tickets in front of the house, serving in the Tea Room or walking their dogs around the gardens.
Spring Highlights
Visitors to the gardens in early April will see swathes of crocuses, narcissi and daffodils. A pretty ‘Camelia Walk' with shade-loving hellebores takes walkers down a path flanked by flowering cherry trees. Before the bluebells take centre stage, the meadows and woodland floor are a sea of primroses and dainty blue scillas. Magnificent mature magnolia trees will also be flowering throughout the gardens and woodlands.
In May the gardens are full of tulips, roses and clematis and the vineyard garden has several impressive standard wisterias to admire. Rhododendrons and azaleas flower throughout the gardens and delicate wild orchids will start to flower in the meadows alongside the architectural spires and star-shaped flowers of ‘camassia'. The sundial garden provides an interesting view over the Wealden countryside through an oval shaped window in the topiary hedge.
Summer Highlights
Visitors to the gardens in the summer months can see the recently renovated long herbaceous borders. Half the border has been replanted in the original pink and blue planting scheme first used by the late Christopher Lloyd when he first designed the border at Hole Park. The remainder of the border was replanted using the original colour scheme of yellow and white. Visitors can also find a riot of colour in the Centenary Garden (formerly the Rose Garden) planted in 2023 to celebrate 100 years since the original completion of Hole Park's gardens by Col Arthur Barham.
Late Summer and Autumn Highlights
The late flowering agapanthus ‘Hole Park Blue'and colourful exotic border with its cannas and dahlias are an impressive sight in late summer before the reds, yellows and golds of autumn appear, bringing colour and interest to the gardens in October.