Cult Flowers: Narcissus

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‘Cult flowers’ appeal to us so persistently that we respond to them in ways that don’t quite make sense.  Their grip on our imagination, our affections, and yes, our resources defy reason.

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Is it possible to fall in love with a genus of plant?  Absolutely. 

Across horticultural history you’ll find characters who left home continents behind to collect them.  You’ll find those who quit their day jobs to breed and raise them full-time.  And, sadly, you’ll find those who ignored their spouse’s better judgement to collect them…. year after beautiful golden year.

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To gain a deeper understanding of the many ways in which daffodils have been ‘cult flowers’ for the last few centuries, treat yourself to Noel Kingsbury’s beautiful and very useful book Daffodil: The Remarkable Story of the World’s Most Popular Spring Flower.  

Kingsbury, a beloved British landscape designer and horticulturalist, takes us on a journey of all things daffodil that actually begins in pharonic Egypt.  Yes, the Egyptian royals were talented gardeners, collecting many of the same plants that we do today:  Narcissus, Iris, lilies, Alliums, and many sorts of fruit bearing trees.  Kingsbury tells us that Ramses II’s  mummy was found with a Narcissus bulb covering each eye.  Now that goes a bit beyond what even we moderns do to enjoy our spring daffodils!

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Because Narcissi return so reliably as winter transforms into spring, they’ve earned a mythic association with time and eternal life. They’re often planted around cemeteries in areas where they perennialize, where they return year after year in ever greater numbers.

Extremely poisonous, Narcissi have a narcotic quality when used medicinally.  They were used, in measured, carefully prepared potions, to sedate and treat pain.   Never mistake a Narcissus bulb for an onion; this has been done from time to time with disastrous results.

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I appreciate the poisonous qualities of daffodils and plant them with confidence where deer shred non-lethal flowers and shrubs.  And I plant a ring of daffodil bulbs around newly planted shrubs and trees, to protect their roots from voles.  In fact, we’ve learned to stop vole traffic to parts of our garden by planting rows of daffodils across their former paths.  Unlike chemicals that must be reapplied every few weeks, the daffodil solution proves permanent, growing denser and more effective with each passing year.

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Kingsbury gave me a good, basic understanding of the various species daffodils known and loved since at least the dark ages.  He quotes medieval manuscripts which describe the daffodils growing in certain royal or monastic gardens, often with small paintings to illustrate the flowers.  He then builds on that knowledge of the species, their characteristics and countries of origin to help explain the work of modern day daffodil breeders.

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There were already nearly 80 distinct types of daffodils recorded in British horticultural records by 1607, when British colonization began here in Virginia.  And yes, those early settlers brought their daffodil bubs with them, sometimes sewn into the clothing they wore on the voyage.

Daffodils were planted early on all over coastal Virginia, and they thrived here.  As European/American settlers moved ever further west, they took their daffodils with them.  So much so, that Kingsbury describes how Native Americans carried daffodil bulbs with them along the Trail of Tears.

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By the early 19th Century, there were 150 distinct types of daffodils cultivated in England.  A Yorkshire vicar dissected all 150 varieties to develop a classification system and discovered that many of the flowers were sterile.  This was in the early days of enthusiasts and scientists understanding the principles of hybridization, and at this time all of the known daffodils were species or natural hybrids.

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Daffodils had perennialized across Virginia’s Gloucester Peninsula when Brent Heath’s grandfather, Charles, visited in search of the farmer who grew a terrific cantaloupe.  It seems his grandfather wanted to arrange personal deliveries of the especially tasty melon.  He found the farmer, and  he also found fields of daffodils, ripe for the picking.  Residents in those days picked the wild daffodils to sell as cut flowers in cities up and down the coast.  As late as the 1980s, daffodils were sold on street corners in Richmond by vendors who purchased daffodils from Gloucester, as soon as they bloomed each spring.

Charles Heath ended up buying the family’s current properties in Gloucester where Brent and Becky’s Bulbs still does business today, and went into the cut flower business.

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That is how the Heath family first entered the wonderful world of growing daffodils.  Charles Heath had connections in Europe, and soon introduced many new European varieties of daffodils to his Gloucester fields, where the flowers were picked, bundled, shipped and sold each spring to ports along our East Coast.  His son, George, continued in the business and had one of the largest collections of Narcissi varieties in North America when his son, Brent was born.

Brent tells stories of how he was instructed at a very early age in how to properly pick and bundle daffodils for sale, and he earned his pocket money by picking daffodils each spring; and later by raising bulbs from small divisions on the family farm, and selling his bulbs.

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Eventually, Brent Heath decided that he wanted to also develop new hybrids.  He was mentored by skilled breeders, and had the knowledge, patience, and attention to detail to develop and bring to market many beautiful new hybrids.  The Heaths are known and respected internationally for their tremendous selection of daffodil and other bulbs, and for the health and vigor of the bulbs they sell.

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Narcissus ‘Katie Heath’ named for Brent Heath’s mother.

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Some might wonder why certain people passionately devote their lives to breeding new varieties of a single type of plant.  Once there are already many thousands of named and recognized varieties, why would the world want more?

Consider that it may take a Narcissus seedling up to five years to flower, and once selected, it may take another 10 to build up a large enough stock of bulbs to market commercially.

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Mary Gay Lirette, a Heath hybrid.

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Only someone passionately devoted to their art would persist so long in the pursuit of offering a new variety of daffodil to the world.  But there are many breeders willing to make the commitment, and who have the resources to generate new hybrids.

On the one hand, there is a desire to perfect the plant, generating stronger stems, more disease resistance, hardiness, and a willingness to grow well and perennialize under a wide variety of growing conditions.  On the other hand, there is the desire to produce certain combinations of form and color.

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Miniature daffodils appeal to many hobbyists with limited growing space, and many breeders are working now to develop ever more combinations of flower form and color on a miniature plant.

Kingsbury opens his chapter on daffodil breeders with a photo of a delicate white miniature daffodil, with a tiny green cup and recurved petals, which stole my heart.  I skimmed ahead for its name so I might order it.

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Sadly, it was an ‘unnamed seedling’ produced by California breeder Harold Koopowitz, and not yet on the market when Daffodil was published in 2013.  The ability to create such variety within the relatively limited scope of the Narcissi characteristics defines both the breeders’ passion and the collector’s lust for new plants.

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Most of us think about the classic yellow trumpet daffodil as our ideal.  It is sunshiny yellow, has six nearly identical petals surrounding a long, wide trumpet, or corona, of the same color.  It stand about 16″ tall on a soft hollow green stem, and has narrow green leaves surrounding it.

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Pure white N. ‘Thalia,’ two flowers per stem, blooms beside double N. ‘Cheerfullness’

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Now, imagine this same flower in white, and you have N. ‘Mount Hood.’ Daffodils may have white, yellow, yellow-green, golden, peach, or pink petals.  The corona may be long or very short, wide or narrow, frilly, doubled, or split into sections, and splayed back against the petals. It may appear in white, green, orange, gold, red, peach, yellow or pink.  Some doubles look like Camellias, their coronas are so full.

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N. ‘Obdam, a sport of N. ‘Ice Follies’

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The petals themselves may be wide or narrow, rounded or pointed, twisted, long or very, very short.  Flowers may be scented or not, one to a stem or many, and the stems themselves may be anywhere from 4″ to 24″ tall.

Finding the variations and interesting new combinations makes the work endlessly fascinating.

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N. ‘Erlicheer’, 1934

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Daffodils bloom over a long season here in coastal Virginia, some as early as late December and some as late as May.  They arise from the wintery earth to grow and bloom when little else is in season, and then once the leaves have re-fueled the bulbs for another year, they die back and disappear.  If naturalized in grass, the grass can be mown again a little more than a month after the flowers finish.

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Many of us enjoy growing daffodils around shrubs and under trees.  They make their spectacular spring show, and then are gone as the trees begin to fill in the canopy of their summer leaves.  We don’t have them around for long enough to grow tired of them.  In our garden, by mid-spring, a new variety or two opens each week.  As the first ones fade, the late daffodils are just blooming.

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N. ‘Delnashaugh’

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I’ve ordered lots of 250 or 300 bulbs of the same daffodil variety from the Heaths each summer for the last several years.  Gardening friends and I divide up the order, each of us growing some number of the same variety in our own yards.  This is a great way to purchase enough bulbs to make a good patch of a variety, without breaking the budget.  Generally, the larger the quantity you can order, the better the price per bulb.

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This year, I’m undecided which variety to order.  I’ve asked some friends for their opinions on my short list of ten varieties, heavily weighted towards the Heath’s own introductions.  I happen to like the more unusual flower forms, like the doubles and split coronas.

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N. ‘Madison’

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I also like those with white petals and color in their corona.  I believe we are leaning towards a beauty called N. ‘Gentle Giant,’ which has white petals and a frilly, bright orange cup.  Whichever one we choose, we will be happy growing it.

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Daffodils are happiness inducing flowers, greeting us each spring with cheerful faces and easy demeanor.

No wonder they have remained ‘cult flowers’ over many centuries of human history, growing perhaps more popular with each passing year.  A gardener knows that the bulbs planted this fall will bloom again and again, long past the time when another gardener has taken over the work.

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Woodland Gnome 2019

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Narcissus: Variations

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A Narcissus is among the simplest of flowers, yet the genus is populated with thousands of cultivars and hybrids.  There are even a few ‘species’ available for gardeners to buy and grow, for those of us who enjoy seeing the purity of what nature gave us before a human hand got creative with it!

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Narcissus ‘Cragford,’ a pre-1930 heirloom Narcissus.

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Amazing creativity has allowed all of these fascinating variations, once we figured out how to go about hybridizing new varieties from old.  This was a very passionate topic in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  Enthusiasts wanted to apply the new understanding of plant genetics to create beautiful and useful new plants.  Others believed that it is wrong to tamper in this way with the natural world.  In the end, there was enough of a market for all of the new varieties of grains, fruit, vegetables and flowers that hobbyists breeding new plants realized there was a great deal of money to make from plant breeding.

Most of the plant breeding was done in small, family businesses or on estates.  The market for these new and unusual plants drove the industry to keep providing new plants for enthusiastic gardeners and collectors.

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Double Van Scion, or Guernsey Double Daffodil c. 1620 England

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Today, The American Daffodil Society has divided the genus into 13 divisions, based on the shape of each part of the blossom, and its heritage. 

If this interests you, please find a copy of Noel Kingsbury’s beautiful book, Daffodil: The Remarkable Story of the World’s Most Popular Spring Flower.  You will learn about the fascinating history of daffodils, their collection, breeding, mythology and the many beautiful variations in their flowers.

I am particularly fond of daffodils from Division 11- Split Corona.  The corona, or cup, in the center of the flower is split into sections, often frilly, and curved back against the flower’s petals.

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Mary Gay Lirette, a Heath hybrid.

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The corona is often a contrasting color from the petals, and the stamens are yet another shade.  This makes for a flower that looks double, though it truly isn’t, and shows a beautiful, open face to the world.

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Many of the split corona daffodils come along a little later in the spring.  The first daffodils to open in our garden are generally the ‘normal’ looking ones, with a long, tubular corona, or trumpet,  and six simple petals:  Division 1- Trumpet.

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These are followed closely by some of our miniatures of similar form.  Miniature may be classed in various divisions, but are called miniatures because they are only about 6″ tall.

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Tete-a-Tete

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We buy nearly all of our daffodils now from Brent and Becky Heath.  The Heath’s are internationally famous for their beautiful daffodils and sell many of their own hybrids.  I am endlessly fascinated with growing daffodils, and love seeing how the slight variations of color and form recombine in so many beautiful ways.

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Right: Ice Follies, a popular 1953 hybrid that multiplies extremely well.  Division 2-Large Cup.  This is their second spring in our garden.

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Daffodils, grown from bulbs, are true perennials.  These are tough and persistent plants that increase each year.

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Each bulb sets off new bulblets each spring, so a single daffodil bulb becomes a sturdy clump of daffodils within just a few years.  Many of these flowers also set seed.  If you don’t deadhead the flowers, the seeds will ripen and spread in early summer.  New plants will grow from these seeds, and crop up in unexpected places.  This is how areas around old homes often come to be carpeted in stands of daffodils each spring.

The daffodils you plant will very likely outlive the gardener, bringing spring time beauty to many, many others in the years ahead.

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Woodland Gnome 2019

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Daffodils, In A Vase

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There are so many beautiful daffodils to grow, with more cultivars available each season.  This is such a deeply satisfying genus to collect because Narcissus prove so easy.  Once planted, they just keep going year to year, and each clump continues to expand.

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I’ve noticed a few new clumps in odd places this spring, and I wonder, “Did I plant those there?”

Narcissus provide a generous supply of nectar for early pollinators, and allowed to go to seed, those seeds spread themselves around.  As logical as I try to be when planting bulbs in the fall, or transplanting clumps ‘in the green’ from pots to the garden the following spring, I can’t always rule out an odd placement.

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A bag of bulbs and a sturdy trowel can provoke their own peculiar mania.  Once some of us begin planting, we may not be able to justify, later, all of those strange things we do with roots and bulbs.

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My neighbor suffers from the same affliction.  We brag to one another about how many new daffodils we’ve planted each fall.  He has even crafted his own special bulb planting tool, which he loans to me on occasion.  It is easier on knees and back, though it allows for only one bulb at a time.

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My habits run more to digging broad, odd shaped craters and stuffing them full of 3, 5, 7 or more plump bulbs and then covering them all back with sweet, moist earth and crunchy mulch.   This is best done on hands and knees, face close to the soil and both hands engaged.

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A more efficient gardener would surely mark the spot with a label, or at least a golf tee.  I pack the ground snugly around the bulbs, trying to erase all signs the earth was ever disturbed so as not to alert the squirrels to this newly buried treasure.  And then I often forget myself what went where.

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And that is good, because when winter turns to spring, and leaves begin to push up through the mulch, I’m left guessing which flowers will appear.

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And so there are fresh surprises nearly every day as petals open and each flower turns its face up towards the sun.  How many petals?  What color, and what shape is the corona?

Is this a new hybrid, or an heirloom species daffodil?

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Daffodils open over a very long season, from very early to very late.  Our first ones open sometime in February, and the latest are still opening in late April or early May.   Each new and different cultivar delights me with its unique beauty.

So many of our flowers we never cut; we enjoy them growing in the garden, but rarely bring them indoors for the vase.

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But daffodils are different.  Wind and rain often blow them down.

I can walk around and ‘rescue’ those blown over, tugging each flowering stem loose, bundling them loosely in a left-handed bunch.

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There is no need to explain to anyone why I’ve robbed the garden of its flowers; I’ve only saved them from the indignity of flopping on the ground.

And then we have the pleasure of their company, the pure luxury of their beauty in a vase inside, for a few precious days each spring.

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Woodland Gnome 2019

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Sunday Dinner: Spirit

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“Walk with the dreamers, the believers, the courageous,

the cheerful, the planners, the doers,

the successful people with their heads in the clouds

and their feet on the ground.

Let their spirit ignite a fire within you

to leave this world better

than when you found it…”

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Wilferd Peterson

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“Human spirit is the ability to face

the uncertainty of the future with curiosity and optimism.

It is the belief that problems can be solved,

differences resolved. It is a type of confidence.

And it is fragile.

It can be blackened by fear, and superstition.”

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Bernard Beckett

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“My religion consists of a humble admiration

of the illimitable superior spirit

who reveals himself in the slight details

we are able to perceive

with our frail and feeble mind.”

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Albert Einstein

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“It does not matter how long you are spending on the earth,

how much money you have gathered

or how much attention you have received.

It is the amount of positive vibration

you have radiated in life that matters,”

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Amit Ray

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“Age has no reality except in the physical world.

The essence of a human being is resistant to the passage of time.

Our inner lives are eternal,

which is to say that our spirits remain

as youthful and vigorous as when we were in full bloom.

Think of love as a state of grace,

not the means to anything,

but the alpha and omega.

An end in itself.”

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Gabriel Garcia Marquez

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“Great spirits have always encountered

violent opposition from mediocre minds.”

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Albert Einstein

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“The first peace, which is the most important,

is that which comes within the souls of people

when they realize their relationship,

their oneness with the universe and all its powers,

and when they realize at the center of the universe

dwells the Great Spirit,

and that its center is really everywhere,

it is within each of us.”

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Black Elk

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2019

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“Sometimes that
which we fear
strengthens our
spirit and gives
us a splash
of hope.”

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Harley King

Blossom XLVI: Snowdrops and Iris

Iris histrioides ‘George’ is blooming today, the first Iris of spring.

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“A garden to walk in and immensity to dream in-

-what more could he ask?

A few flowers at his feet

and above him the stars.”

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Victor Hugo

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Galanthus elwesii

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“Nobody sees a flower – really –

it is so small it takes time

– we haven’t time –

and to see takes time,

like to have a friend takes time.”

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Georgia O’Keeffe

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“If you want love to blossom in your heart,

just sit in the garden,

and watch the flowers grow.”

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Anthony T. Hincks

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“I must have flowers, always, and always.”

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Claude Monet

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Galanthus ‘Sam Arnott’ with Helleborus

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Woodland Gnome 2019

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“All the flowers of all the tomorrows

are in the seeds of today”
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Robin Craig Clark

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“Love speaks in flowers.

Truth requires thorns.”
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Leigh Bardugo

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Mahonia aquifolium

 

 

Fabulous Friday: Changes in the Air

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Do you remember stories from your childhood about ‘Jack Frost’ turning the leaves bright colors ?  I remember stories and poems about Jack Frost, and making Crayola drawings with a wild assortment of brightly colored leaves on my brown stick trees.  It seems a ‘given’ that leaves change their colors when the nights begin to turn cool.

But neither our nights nor our days have cooled substantially, and yet the community is definitely taking on autumn’s hues.

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We noticed it as we drove across College Creek today, admiring the first hints of yellow and gold in the trees along the opposite bank.  But we also see it in our own garden, as scarlet creeps across some dogwood leaves and the crape myrtle leaves begin to turn, even as the trees still bloom.

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The Williamsburg Botanical Garden shows its autumn colors.

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We are running 12 to 13 degrees above our ‘normal’ temperatures most days lately, and it is a rare night that has dropped even into the 60s.  And yet the plants are responding to the change of season.   Perhaps they sense the days growing shorter; perhaps they are just getting tired.

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I. ‘Rosalie Figge’ has just come back into bloom in our garden.

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Our ‘re-blooming’ Iris have sent up their first autumn stalks.  We’ve been blessed with plenty of rain, recently, and so the Iris will have a good second season.  Some of our neighbors have Encore Azaleas covered in flowers

I was dumbfounded to see how gigantic some of the Colocasias, Alocasias and Caladiums grew in the catalog garden at the Bulb Shop in Gloucester.  I can’t remember ever seeing these plants grow so huge in Virginia.

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The catalog garden at Brent and Becky’s Bulb Shop is filled with some of the largest Colocasias I’ve ever seen. Do you recognize C. ‘Tea Cups’?

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But with good soil and near constant moisture, these amazing tropicals have shown us their potential for growth when they get all the warmth and moisture and nutrition they could possibly want.  I spoke with some of the staff there about how popular tropical ‘elephant ears’ have become in recent years, as coastal Virginia becomes ever more hospitable to them.

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We ventured up to Gloucester this week to pick up our order of fall bulbs.  It is admittedly too warm, still, to plant most spring bulbs.  But I retrieved our order, shared with friends, and now will simply hold most of the bulbs for another few weeks until the nights finally cool.

There are a few bulbs that need to get in the ground right away, like dog tooth violets and our Italian Arum.  Both are actually tubers, and shouldn’t be allowed to dry out.  Our Muscari, left in pots over the summer, are already in leaf.

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I’ve planted the first of my autumn four season pots filled with bulbs and mulched with moss.  This one will begin with autumn Crocus and Cyclamen in a few weeks, and then begin the early spring with snowdrops, Crocus, Muscari and dog tooth violet.  Finally, it will finish the season with late daffodils. The pot is anchored with an oak leaf Hydrangea and a deciduous lady fern. 

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If the daffodils and tulips get planted too early, they might grow too much before the really cold weather finds us.  We can continue planting spring bulbs here into late December, maybe even early January.  I’d much rather do it in October though, wouldn’t you?

As the weather cools down a bit, I’m wanting to get back out in the garden to do a bit of tidying up before the fall planting begins.

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Pineapple Sage is already blooming in our garden. I have several still in 4″ pots I need to plant one day soon.

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I’ve got a backlog of plants sheltering in pots, just waiting for their chance to grow.  I visited a friend today who was weeding and digging her Caladiums to store for next summer.   Some of our Caladiums are beginning to die back a little, so she was probably wise to dig them while she can see a few leaves and find their roots.

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This is one of our favorite Alocasias, often called African Mask. It spends winter in the living room, and summer in a shady part of the garden.

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Bright orange wreathes are showing up on neighbor’s doors, and by Monday, the calendar will say ‘October.’  I suppose it is time to get on with it and embrace the changing seasons.

While I believe we will have another month, or two, of ‘Indian Summer’ before our first frost; I suppose we all just assume it is time for pumpkin lattes and chrysanthemums.  Some of my friends are already setting out huge mums and pulling their annuals.

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Hardy Begonias are at their peak, blooming and so beautiful this week.

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I’m not there, yet.  I’m still admiring our many ‘elephant ears’ and Begonias and watching for butterflies.  In fact, I came home from Gloucester with a sweet little Alocasia ‘Zebrina,‘ that  I’ve had my eye on all season.  They had just two left, and then they had one….

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Alocasia grown huge at the catalog garden

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The display plant, growing out in the catalog garden, was a bit taller than me.  Its leaves were absolutely huge!

I don’t know that my pot grown aroids will ever get quite that impressive, especially when they are forced to nap all winter in the basement.  But we enjoy them in their season, and their season will soon close.

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We found both Monarchs and a few chrysalis at the Williamsburg Botanical Garden this week.

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I have been admiring our garden today, and celebrating the successes we’ve enjoyed this year.  I am intentionally procrastinating on any chores that hasten our passage into autumn.

That said, the pumpkin bagels that showed up at Trader Joes this week are truly delicious.

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Woodland Gnome 2018

Fabulous Friday:

Happiness is Contagious; Let’s Infect One Another!

Fabulous Friday: Evergreen

Hardy Cyclamen and bulb foliage shine through the leaf litter of a perennial bed at the Heath’s display garden in Gloucester, Virginia.

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I’m appreciative today for every little scrap of green shining in our winter garden.  So much of the world is brown or grey or beige here this week.

Although I’ve spotted a few early snow drops, Galanthus, in public gardens; we haven’t seen more than the first tentative tips of green leaves from our own spring bulbs.  And yet they are utterly fascinating as they push up through the wet, nearly frozen Earth; and we celebrate every tiny tip of green.

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Early February comes, some years, gilded with early Forsythia, the first golden Crocus, and a few brave daffodils splashed across the landscape.

Other years, winter still reigns supreme. Tiny Forsythia buds shiver along the branches, swollen but wisely closed.  Bulbs wait for the sun’s warm embrace to trigger their unfolding.

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Italian Arum keeps sending up leaves despite the frosty weather.  Our first daffodils have begun to show themselves in recent days.

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This winter feels unusually determined and harsh.  It has been so cold that many of our evergreen shrubs, like the wax myrtle and Camellias, have cold-burned leaves.  Worse, many of their leaves have fallen this year, lying browned and forlorn beneath the shrubs’ bare twigs.

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Every bit of evergreen moss and leaf and blade and needle catches my grateful eye with its promise of better gardening days ahead.  I feel glad for all of those winter hardy Cyclamen and Arum blithely shining against the leaf litter and mud below them.  The effort of finding them and planting them feels like a very wise investment in horticultural happiness today.

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Osmanthus ‘Goshiki’ grows in several pots in our winter garden. Generally cold hardy, even this has shown damage from our frigid nights in January.

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Garden designers always admonish us to plan for all seasons in the garden.  But one season isn’t like the last, and this year isn’t like the next.  We gardeners are always improvising and experimenting, our planting often extemporaneous; the results surprisingly serendipitous.  It is through these odd cracks of chance that magic happens in our gardens.

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Hellebore leaves and hardy ferns fill the bed beneath a fall blooming Camellia shrub.

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I know it has been a harsh winter when deer even strip the Hellebore leaves and nibble the flowers from a thorny Mahonia shrub.  I caught a large herd of 20 or more gazing longingly into our garden, through the fence, from our neighbor’s yard this afternoon.  Individuals find their way in from time to time.  Hoof prints in the moist soil tell their never-sorry tale.

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Deer have even nibbled leaves from new English ivy plants in our garden this winter.

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What’s left behind and living feels all the more precious today.  I’m glad for the stray Vinca vine shining through the leaf litter.  The stray wild strawberry plant looks oddly elegant air planted in a rotting stump.  I feel that every evergreen shrub was planted as insurance against a frigid February like this one.

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Mountain Laurel will resume growth and bloom by mid-May.

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I’m happy to pause today to celebrate every ever-green and growing thing I see in the garden.

We’ll ignore the usual labels of ‘weed’ or ‘native,’ ‘exotic’ or ‘invasive.’  We’ll pay no mind to how large or unusual its eventual blooms might  be, or even consider whether or not we will still want to befriend it in June.

We’ll just let it warm our gardener’s hearts on this cold and windy February day, and follow its brave example of endurance through challenging times.

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Woodland Gnome 2018

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Fabulous Friday:  Happiness is contagious, let’s infect one another!

 

Where Horticulture Meets History

Narcissus ‘Telamonius Plenus’

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Every plant has a story.  And these stories are as laced with adventure, intrigue, (plant) lust and great friendships as any you might hear.

Take the little Daffodil, Narcissus ‘Telamonius Plenus.’   This is the oldest known ‘double’ daffodil, and records tell us that it’s first spring to flower was in 1620, in the London garden of immigrant Vincent Sion, who was Flemish.  His friends admired this little flower so much, that eventually he shared some of his bulbs with friends.  Several other names attach to this little flower, derived from these first gardeners to enjoy it.

You may hear it called ‘Van Scion’ for the original grower, or perhaps ‘Wilmer’s Great Double Daffodil’ after George Wilmer, one of Scion’s friends who received those original bulbs.

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Double Van Scion, or Guernsey Double Daffodil

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We found the very doubled Narcissus in the photo above growing in our garden during our first spring here in 2010.  I’d never noticed a Daffodil quite like this before.  But in reading about N. ‘Telemonius Plenus’, or N. ‘Van Scion,’ I’ve learned that these two forms of the original double Daffodil seem to be named interchangeably and share a long history together.  So this one also dates back to 17th Century England, and likely made it to Virginia in the baggage of early colonists.

This clump proves very hardy and prolific.    We have a few clumps of these growing in the front garden now, and I want to perhaps divide these in a few weeks to spread them around a bit more.

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This variety is known for the tinges of green on its petals.

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Once upon a time, one’s garden reflected one’s friendships.  Plant lust remains one of the passions good friends share, just as it was in the early days of exploration and hybridization.

We hear of transcontinental friendships where American colonists collected seeds and cuttings to ship back to their botanical buddies in England, Holland and France.  European gardeners had unlimited faith in the ‘new world’ to proffer new fruits and nuts, flowers, ferns and useful trees.

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And the most promising of these plants took root in the great gardens of Europe first, shared among friends, before finally entering the nursery trade.

Likewise, American colonists ordered seeds and favorite plants from their contacts back in Europe to plant in their newly cleared gardens.  Many of the plants we grow here now came to us from Asia, by way of Europe, sometime over the last 400 years.

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Another double Narcissus we grow, which probably came to us from Brent and Becky Heath’s bulb shop.

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Even today, friendships can be cemented through favorite plants shared with one another.  We give of our gardens, we give of ourselves.  Like so many other things we love, plants outlive us.  Their propagation proves part of our legacy.

How many of us nurture a shrub grown from a cutting given to us by a loved one?  How many of us divided perennials from our parents’ garden to start our own?  How many of us grow plants today that were given to us by loved ones?

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Plants given in love are nurtured, protected, propagated and eventually passed on to others.  This is how we keep the old varieties going strong, even as newly hybridized or collected plants are introduced for our consideration each and every year.

Woodland Gnome 2017

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This lovely Daffodil is blooming all over our garden this week. A gift from our neighbor, who dug and divided his Daffodils in the fall of 2015, it blooms this year for us.  He gave me a whole bucked of unknown Daffodil bulbs, and I happily planted them everywhere!

 

Fabulous Friday: Daffodils

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Daffodils simply sing happiness as they nod and wave in the early spring breeze.

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Sometimes that breeze is a little more lively, and the nodding and waving make a clear photo next to impossible.  But I still find it satisfying to try and capture their beautiful faces with as much clarity as conditions allow.

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We watch for patches of bright Daffodils as we drive around town.  And we find Daffodils in abundance around Williamsburg.

As much as we enjoy the daffies blooming along the roadsides and in others’ gardens, we agree the very best Daffodil display greets us on our own street.

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Our close neighbors love Daffodils, too, and have thousands blooming in their yards.  A golden sea of daffies welcomes us home.

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Our combined collection grows from year to year.  In autumn, we plant everything from ‘big box store’ mixtures to named hybrids.  Our neighbor lends his bulb planter as we confer about how many we each plan to buy and plant before winter halts our efforts.

I pore over the catalogs in late summer, selecting which new daffies we will plant that year.   Together, my partner and I  plan where to extend the new Daffodil plantings in our garden.

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We see this annual Daffodil planting as an investment in happiness.

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And these are just the opening act!  These early daffies have opened since the second week of February.  Many more will follow…..

Walking through our garden, and admiring the Daffodils together, has made this Friday Fabulous!

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Arum growing with our daffodils last February

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What is more happiness-inducing than to watch the daffies emerge and bloom each spring?   They are a sure herald of better times ahead!

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2017

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I am setting an intention to find some wonderful, beautiful, and happiness inducing thing to write about each Friday. 

Now that the Weekly Photo Challenge has moved to Wednesdays, I am starting  “Fabulous Friday” on Forest Garden. 

If you’re moved to find something Fabulous to share on Fridays as well, please tag your post “Fabulous Friday” and link your post back to mine. 

Happiness is contagious!  Let’s infect one another!

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To Be One Drop of Water….

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But water always goes where it wants to go,

and nothing in the end can stand against it.

Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone.

Remember that, my child. Remember

you are half water. If you can’t go through an obstacle,

go around it.     Water does.”

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Margaret Atwood

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“Wisdom cannot be imparted.

Wisdom that a wise man attempts to impart

always sounds like foolishness to someone else …

Knowledge can be communicated,

but not wisdom. One can find it, live it,

do wonders through it,

but one cannot communicate and teach it.”

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Hermann Hesse

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“One kernel is felt in a hogshead;

one drop of water helps to swell the ocean;

a spark of fire helps to give light to the world.

None are too small, too feeble,

too poor to be of service.

Think of this and act.”

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Hannah More

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2017

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