Gardens: Cambo House, Fife

Catherine Erskine, the undisputed queen of Scottish snowdrops – who began the revival of the garden at Cambo, her husband Peter’s family home, on the strength of its snowdrop display – has been unstinting in her efforts to encourage fellow gardeners and landowners to open their gates to the public to celebrate the iconic flower.

From small gardens, such as Shepherd House, Inveresk – packed with fascinating specialist snowdrops – to large, dreamy parklands with river banks blanketed in white bulbs, or Cambo’s evening event Snowdrops by Starlight, an exciting range of gardens invite visitors in to explore their grounds under the umbrella of the Scottish Snowdrop Festival and Scotland’s Gardens Scheme from early February to mid-March.

Thanks to the warming effects of the Gulf Stream some of the earliest snowdrops – so early they were traditionally picked and shipped via the night sleeper to Covent Garden – are found at Dunskey, Eddie and Di Orr-Ewing’s Wigton garden. Close to the harbour village of Portpatrick, with snowdrops drifting into the woodlands, and an 18th-century walled garden featuring Victorian glasshouses, a maze and a collection of specialist snowdrops cultivated by head gardener Gaby Belton, Dunksey is just the right size for a half-day visit.

Further north in Kircudbright, Dane-vale Park, which Australian-born Janet Gillespie inherited unexpectedly from two great aunts 50 years ago, boasts carpets of snowdrops stretching down to the River Dee. But it was not always so: when Janet and her late husband Michael first moved here they found neglected, overgrown policies and few clues this had once been a lovely garden.

“We began hacking away at the undergrowth and clearing the woods of rhododendron ponticum, laurel, brambles and rosebay willowherb,” she says.

The following year, they were surprised to find thousands of snowdrops, pools of yellow aconites, hellebores and clusters of yellow primroses pushing through the ground under the magnificent trees planted by Janet’s great grandfather. Attributing the success of her snowdrops to the free draining soil, she says: “Drainage is important for snowdrops. They grow so well here I don’t even have to split them up to get them to spread.” She is also certain that birds help by moving the seed around and is continually surprised by how robust these small white plants are.

“Sometimes the river floods and the snowdrops are under water for as long as ten days. I always think they won’t survive but as soon as the water goes down they pop up,” she says.

Winter is the perfect time to visit 17th-century House of Pitmuies, where the framework of marvellous old buildings forms a charming backdrop to Marguerite Ogilvie’s renowned Angus garden. Best known for its richly planted herbaceous borders where delphiniums star in June, Pitmuies also boasts a top quality display of bulbs, ranging from snowdrops and crocus to massed daffodils and bluebells.

Even on the coldest day of the year, a walk through the walled garden reveals early flowering treasures such as iris, hellebores and bright blue sillas. Lower down, the drying green in front of the old laundry is packed with bulbs, which stretch along towards the doocote and through the woodland garden. Here, the banks on both sides of the burn ebb and flow with drifts of snowdrops and sparkling pools of yellow aconites.

If you want to visit two gardens in one day, Gagie House, north of Dundee – home to Dutch-born architect France Smoor and his wife Clare – is not far away and features a charming display of snowdrops reached via a mile long woodland walk through a winter garden. Managed with minimal help, it is an inspiration for those with smaller plots: Clare has learned that there are many lovely warm winter days when you can split and spread snowdrops. “Nowadays I’m outside much more in the winter, splitting up clumps of snowdrops and spreading them around on both sides of the path,” she says. The display, she adds, lasts until March and visitors are welcome to help themselves to tea and coffee in the cosy, rustic, DIY tearoom.

For proper old-fashioned charm and romance, the 20 woodland policies threaded with a burn at Kailzie Gardens are hard to beat. Situated at 700ft in a bowl overlooking the Leithen Hills in the Tweed Valley near Peebles, the garden is within easy reach of Edinburgh and the restaurant in the converted stables is the perfect place to warm up with a cup of hot chocolate.

Once in the ownership of the Earls of Traquair, Kailzie’s walled and woodland garden continues to be enthusiastically developed by Angela Buchan-Hepburn who, 30 years ago, determined that spring “should arrive at Kailzie as early as possible”. She started splitting up trailer-loads of snowdrops and, finding they flourished in the sandy, free draining soil, spent subsequent winters expanding the collection, a process she found to be very therapeutic. “Many of the ups and downs in my life have gone into planting those snowdrops,” she says. “When I start planting I forget about my problems.”

Each garden owner, and there are many more, revels in their snowdrop collection and the joy these bulbs bring in winter. Echoing the sentiment most commonly expressed by garden owners, Angela explains: “The thing I like best about snowdrops is that they herald the start of the year. They flower after the bleak months of December and January and are such brave flowers; they push their way through the soil regardless of the conditions.”

Cambo House, Kingsbarns, Fife KY16 8QD; Snowdrop Spectacular 13 February-13 March; Snowdrops by Starlight 11-19 February; www.cambosnowdrops.com

Shepherd House, Inveresk EH21 7TH; www.shepherdhousegarden.co.uk

Dunskey Garden, Portpatrick, Wigtonshire DG9 8TJ; open 18-19 and 25-26 February, 10am-4pm; www.dunskey.com

Danevale Park, Crossmichael, Kirkcudbrightshire DG7 2LP; opening date to be advised but tends to be towards the end of February under Scotland’s Gardens Scheme.

House of Pitmuies, Guthrie, by Forfar DD8 2SN; 1-14 March, 10am-5pm for the Snowdrop Festival.

Gagie House, Gagie, Duntrune, nr Dundee DD4 0PR; 19 February onwards for snowdrops; www.gagie.com

Kailzie Gardens, Peebles EH45 9HT; 1 February-14 March; 01721 720007, www.kailziegardens.com