Years ago, our family acquired a weekend house in the Tidewater area of Virginia. It was a small, early eighteenth-century brick cottage surrounded by a wilderness of weeds, honeysuckle, tawny daylilies, and an almost-as-big-as-the-house American pillar rose which sheltered groundhog holes under its thorny tangle.
Several lilac bushes and patches of iris foliage among the weeds were the only survivors of someone’s effort for flowers. Crowding pine, locust, and sweet gum trees were eager to take over the place.
Our Garden Plan
Our plan for a garden, after we subdued the wilderness, was simple. We would frame an outdoor living room with flowering trees and shrubs, plant some hardy things which “look after themselves,” some fall asters, peonies, iris, bright annuals to cut, a few herbs near the kitchen, and of course, for spring, daffodils. Daffodils have a long season of bloom and need little care.
The first daffodil bulb order was the result of careful selection. Actaea, Mrs. Backhouse, Unsurpassable, Thalia, Beersheba. Hades, John Evelyn, Fortune. Scarlet Leader, Golden Harvest, February Gold, Campernelle, and Narcissus jonquilla simplex were on it, and they and their numerous progeny are still favorites.
From a Kentucky garden, we had King Alfred, Empress, Will Scarlett, Laurens Koster, Narcissus albus plenus odoratus (introduced into cultivation in 1861), and an early white trumpet without a name.
Most of these were naturalized in long-grass areas. Starting with February Gold on Washington’s Birthday until the beginning of May, there were at least a few daffodils to reward our rush to see what was in bloom.
New Daffodil Varieties Are Added
Each year several new varieties have been added. More than two hundred varieties are planted in the borders, under shrubs, and, very special ones, in four box-bordered beds that began as the herb garden.
The herbs still flourish – indeed all too well – because they thrive on full sun and a lean diet while daffodils and box like a good diet. But aside from overgrown herbs which endure much pruning, the three prove pretty compatible.
I want to say that the gray and green-gray foliage of sage, lavender, Santolina, thyme, rosemary, marjoram, and rue hide the dying daffodil foliage after the flowers fade. Still, the truth is that it is all too evident and looks quite frowzy until about the end of June.
It has been interesting to learn something about the different classes of daffodils. Inevitably some prove special pets. The jonquilla group is very appealing, and the triandrus division has some daffodils we value highly – Silver Chimes and lovely Thalia, to name a couple.
Miniature Daffodils Fascinating and Unpredictable
We have adventured with miniatures and find them fascinating and unpredictable. Of course, the whites in all classes are beautiful – but who would want nothing but white daffodils? So the list of notable favorites grows longer and longer each year.
Doubles do not do well in our garden. Beautiful, fragrant N. albus plenus odoratus taken from a Kentucky garden where it had bloomed bountifully for many years proved disappointing.
It has done nothing but sulk for ten years despite our efforts to find the right place for it – shade, moisture, deep planting, and extra good culture have made no difference. The buds blast in the first hot spell we are sure to have before the end of April when it would bloom if it bloomed.
Blue ribbon winners will not remain that unless lifted and divided every three or four years. But, of course, this is entirely unnecessary if your interest in daffodils does not include shows.
We find them so stimulating and the source of so much first-hand knowledge that it seems worth while to grow a few kinds with special care, in the hope that there will be a blue ribbon winner or two among them.
If like ours, your weekend garden is unfenced and unguarded most of the time, there will almost certainly be disasters. A child takes an occasional offering to the teacher on the way to school – always of the choicest blossoms!
The first year we grew Trousseau, it was gathered by some visitor who chose those from hundreds of others. This year Chinese White, which has taken its own time establishing itself in our garden, went the same way – two blooms were left for us.
Lost Plant Labels
It is a well-known fact that labels move about more in weekend gardens than in town gardens. It is easier to be philosophical about such minor tragedies in retrospect than at the moment of discovery. Still, such losses are trivial over the years compared to the compound interest paid each spring by fair daffodils who “look after themselves.”
FGR1060 – by V. Durbin