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Snowdrop festival hosts Gardeners' Question Time

Clara Bullock & Cheryl Dennis
BBC News, Somerset
BBC Anne Swithinbank is seen from her shoulders up. She is wearing a blue, patterned scarf and has light, shoulder-length hair. She is smiling. In the background is a pristine garden at a country house.BBC
Gardeners' Question Time panellist Anne Swithinbank has celebrated the arrival of snowdrops

A town which will soon be "blanketed" in snowdrops is set to be showcased on BBC Radio 4's Gardeners' Question Time.

More than half a million snowdrop bulbs have been planted for Shepton Mallet Snowdrop Festival, which will begin on 21 February.

Ahead of the event, millions of listeners across the UK will be able to learn about the town's flowers after the radio show recorded with an audience at Kilver Court this week.

"There are thousands of snowdrop varieties, there are even some that flower in autumn," said the show's panellist Anne Swithinbank.

Clusters of snowdrops blanket a large section of mossy grass in a wooded area.
Snowdrops usually start blooming in late January and February

Ms Swithinbank has been a panellist on the radio show for 31 years, but said she still gets nervous before recording episodes.

"I still feel that wonderful excitement of anxiety and excitement because you just don't know what's going to crop up," she said.

The first of the episodes will go out on 24 January and the second on 14 February.

Amanda Hirst is standing in front of a garden path and a stone wall. She is wearing a grey jacket and is smiling at the camera.
Amanda Hirst said the festival planted more than half a million snowdrops

The snowdrop festival celebrates James Allen - a horticulturalist from Shepton Mallet who was the first person to breed new varieties from wild snowdrops in the late 19th century.

Amanda Hirst is one of the festival's volunteers. She said the aim is to "blanket the town" in white flowers.

"We planted more than half a million snowdrop bulbs around the town," she added.

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