White magic

SNOWDROPS have always been favourite Rothschild flowers. Miss Alice, the sister of the first Baron Rothschild of Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire, planted quantities of wild snowdrops in her own garden at Eythrope Park, which lies within the manor’s demesne. (This year sees her centenary, which will be celebrated in many different ways.) Some of her naturalised bulbs still survive, but over the past 22 years, ever since Miss Alice’s garden was re-created for her descendant Lord Rothschild, numerous special forms of the familiar wildling now