Daffodils

My daughter, Melanie, came in this afternoon and told me some Galanthus had pushed up through the snow and were blooming their heads off. Galanthus, a small genus of about 20 species of bulbous herbaceous plants in the Amaryllis family are called, appropriately enough, snow drops (right). It's always a joy to see them, the first sign of the coming spring at Dragongoose Farm. Under the snow are most likely the yellow spread of winter aconite (Eranthis hyemalis), and I've been known to brush the snow cover away in spots in the big oval bed in front of the house to make sure they were still there. On the heels of the winter aconite are the Dutch crocus (Crocus vernis) which we have in a fair size swath in a bed along the southwest corner of the brick walk fronting the main house.

But the big show, the thing we wait for with the most excitement are the swaths and patches of bright yellow and white daffodils and narcissi. First the green shoots push through the ground – and by this time the snow is gone – then the buds appear, swelling green ovals on top of the stems, and then the narrow ovals bend over (or as Melanie puts it, they "get into position") and, finally, a bit of yellow announces the trumpets will soon make their appearance. This process seems at first to take forever, but once it starts, the show is truly on.

When Wordsworth was startled by that long band of golden daffodils on a wandering walk with his sister, Dorothy, on April 15, 1802, it gave birth to his poem called variously "The Daffodils," or "Daffodils" or "I wandered lonely as a cloud," a poem that untold junior high school students were set to memorize back in the day – as I was at the age of thirteen. At daffodil time I think of it and repeat lines that have stuck with me throughout the years of growing up and growing old, the poem celebrating a "Host of golden daffodil s"

A treat indeed is a reading of the Wordsworth poem by Jeffrey Irons that you can listen to here. "I wandered lonely as a cloud/ That floats on high o'er vales and hills/ When all at once I saw a crowd/ A host, of golden daffodils."

Beside the lake . . . beneath the trees . . .
Miniature daffodils in shade

Joan Shaw

The two small photos above are of a bed of miniature trumpets that I planted three years ago. They are very tiny and they sometimes get almost engulfed by the greenery of the ajuga (Ajuga reptens), violets (Viola odorata), and rosettes of the columbine (aquilegia). (I was flat on my stomach when I took that closeup photo.)The tree that's surrounded by the little daffodils is a river birch, the bare shrubs in the background are old lilacs, an ancient honeysuckle, and a very old apple tree over the hill. From the brow of the hill we can see all over the east side of the valley including fields just greening up, the foothills and mountains opposite, and the Cub River right below. The Cub is not a lake as in Wordsworth's poem, but it IS water and sort of fits the poem.

And daffodils do indeed flutter and dance in the spring winds that oftentimes scour the farm in late March and April. Below is a thick clump of the cyclamineus daffodil, 'Jenny', with swept back guard petals and yellow trumpets, a wonderful sight when they are all blooming at once across the front of the house.

. . . fluttering and dancing in the breeze
DaffodilsWest

Melanie Shaw

Below are the 'Jennys' when they've faded to white, about a week after first blooming, and as the weather heats up. . .

. . . tossing their heads in sprightly dance
Daffodils Cyclamen type

Joan Shaw

Here is a seedling daffodil, a fairly large one, that popped up last year before the 'Jenny' group even started to bud. It's turned out creamy white and shows how natural hybrids have produced such variations among flowers through the centuries with not much intervention by gardeners. Note the pale yellow inside of the trumpet while the outside is pure white.

Melanie Shaw

We have wanted for years to photograph our hillside – the one between the south orchard and the drive up to our place – when the mass of daffodils are blooming. The daffs planted there are doubles, half 'Replete' and half 'Winston Churchill'. When they're in full bloom they look like a hillside full of popcorn, and they smell deliciously fragrant, even wafting into car windows as we drive up to the house. Melanie, did, however, photograph a bloom of Winston Churchill alone (below). 'Replete' has a pink blush with darker pink in the center.

Melanie Shaw

Over the five or six years these doubles have been on this side hill, however, a patch of common bright yellow trumpets have appeared. I think it was an over-vigorous application of grass herbicide at the wrong time. It's safe to spray for grass when the daffodils are dormant and safely underground, but it's a chancy thing to spray while they above ground and growing. We've been meaning for some time to dig up the yellow trumpets and plant them elsewhere, but while they're dormant we don't know where they are and when they're blooming we're too busy with other spring work to do the digging. For sure this year (the usual vow).

Happy spring, everyone,
Joan