High of 88F, a record, perhaps. Can daffodils suffer heat stroke? Some of mine fell over. I took a look at them shortly before nine in the morning, and they were lovely as only a freshly opened daffodil can be. By the time I got home late afternoon, some were already past their prime, and a few were face down in the dirt. There have been other April heat waves, and I understand the blooms browning and wilting. But is it sheer lack of moisture that causes them to fall over, or failure to take it up rapidly enough? Inquiring minds want to know.

I don’t know the variety of these daffodils. I rescued the clump from a neglected area on my neighbor’s property, and replanted them in her garden and mine. Here’s what they looked like last year:

Yes, I know the Garden Bloggers Bloom Day was yesterday the day before yesterday. I didn’t get finished in time. So just pretend this is May 15th, okay? (As always, hover your mouse over any thumbnail for a caption, and click on any photo for a larger image.)

Narcissus

Let’s start off with the narcissus. The early daffodils are all gone, but the later ones are in their prime. Do you remember those new ones I told you about? Let’s start with them.

Left to right, the most recently opened first: Malin Head, Achnasheen, Rimmon, Eland, and (second row) Vernal Prince. Angel doesn’t look like it will bloom, as Mr. Burdick suspected. It’s been a cool spring–until today, when it got up to 88F–and many of my daffodils have remained good looking for a long time. Here’s more that are blooming right now:

These are arranged so that the most recent bloomer is last. Left to right, we have Thalia, then a narcissus acquired in a swap, which I’m calling Irish Laddie because the gardener I swapped with had an Irish name, then an unnamed one I got from my sister-in-law, and then the species poeticus. You probably noticed that Malin Head looks an awful lot like a poeticus. It is a larger flower overall, with a larger cup. Also the cup is supposed to whiten as it ages, but it only opened today, so I haven’t seen that for myself. (Update: The yellow in the cup does indeed fade, leaving the orange rim, and, if you look carefully, a tiny bit of green in the very center.)

Spring Ephemerals

I have Trillium grandiflorum growing on the north side of my house, and in the secret garden, and I planted all of them myself. But on Monday I saw a trillium blooming in our woods, the first one I have seen since our first spring here in 1990. Was it always there, and we just never saw it? Or are trilliums finally finding their own way back?

The next two flowers are both gaywings, Polygala paucifolia. I love them; they are so cute. They remind me of little propellers. They are not that common, but we apparently have the perfect conditions for them, as they carpet the woods at this time of the year.

Next is marsh marigold (Caltha palustris). I bought this at The Plantsmen and I hope to introduce it into the secret garden once I build up stock.

Second row, leftmost is another plant I just discovered on Monday. It’s wood anemone (Anemone quinquefolia). There was a nice little patch of them. I just love discovering new native plants growing on our land.

The next plant, early meadow rue (Thalictrum dioicum) has delicate, ferny foliage but not much in the way of flowers. There are a couple of trilliums intertwined with this plant, but I think I’m going to risk dividing it this fall, and moving some pieces to the secret garden.

I have three different violets. Pictured is sweet white violet (Viola blanda). We have loads of the common violet (Viola papilionacea) and we also have what I think is the sister violet (Viola sororia) in the wettest parts of the field.

Last but not least of the native plants, Virginia bluebells (Mertensia virginica). For me, this is a passalong plant that I received from my neighbor. It has multiplied quite well, self-sowing, and making enough new plants that I now have some in the secret garden, and have started another patch as well.

Everything Else

“Everything else” is not much. I have some lilac creeping phlox blooming, and some Johnny-jump-ups, and the flowering almond that was here when we moved in is in its glory:As you can see, it has a rather scraggly habit (though a hard pruning might do wonders), but I can assure you, a sprig of this plant in a bud vase next to a hospital bed is immensely cheering. I am not the only one who appreciates them. Lilacs and apple blossoms are were in bud. (That’s colchicum foliage all around the shrub, by the way.) Trees in general have unfurled their leaves part way, looking like yellow-green and mahogany-red poodle fur on the hillside opposite our house. Do you consider spring to have ended, and summer begun, when the leaves are fully unfurled? What signals the end of spring for you?

Time to put my money where my heart is

When I was in college, I lived in a third-floor walkup with two fellow students. Whenever anyone shut the front door to the building, all the tenants felt the resulting vibrations. And we subconsciously monitored the sound of footsteps on the stairs, calculating in the back of our minds how likely was the prospect of company. Consequently, my roommates and I looked at each other inquiringly when footsteps going at a dead run did not stop at the second floor but continued up to our landing. Was the stair climber for us, or for our neighbors? Are you expecting anyone?

Our door rapped insistently, and I opened it to face the hugest bunch of flowers I have ever encountered. I don’t mean the individual flowers were huge, but the bouquet itself was so big two hands could barely surround it. On the other side of the bouquet was my fiance, just one month before he was to become my husband. He was breathing hard.

“Here,” he said between gasps for air. “These are for you. . . . They grow in our field. . . . I had wanted . . . to give you some . . . last year, but you went home for the summer before they were blooming.” A car horn honked from the street below. “Oh, that’s my dad. Gotta run. See ya.” He tore down the stairs as fast as he had arrived.

Barely contained in my fully extended fingers were several dozen Narcissus poeticus, in the same genus as the yellow trumpet daffodils I knew from childhood, and yet so different. First of all, they’re fragrant. I have since met up with yellow trumpets that have a faint perfume when I thrust my nose into the trumpet and breathe deeply, but the fragrance of poet’s narcissus is generous enough to carry on a spring breeze. Secondly, the poet’s narcissus doesn’t have a trumpet, but a shallow cup, making the six floral leaves of the perianth much more prominent. Thirdly, the demeanor of the plant is different, nodding gently downward as the mythical Narcissus must have gazed into the mirror-like water. Finally, the color is all different, none of this brash look-at-me yellow, but “petals” of purest white and a green-eyed, red-rimmed cup.

And how can I look at them without thinking of that young lover bounding up the stairs?

So I was greatly surprised several months ago to overhear this conversation between two offspring:

“What’s Mom’s favorite flower?”
“Colchicums, duh.”

Upon reflection, I realized how this grave misconception of their mother’s floral psyche could have occurred. I had been buying colchicums, planting colchicums, keeping records on colchicums, and blogging colchicums. In the case of narcissus, I had, for the most part, merely been dividing and replanting the ones I already had. But while colchicums stimulate my curiosity, narcissus had captured my heart long ago. Yet I had so many of the more common ones around that I took them for granted.

I decided it was time to switch obsessions.

It was time to indulge in some flowers that made me sigh with their exquisite beauty. I still wanted something out of the ordinary, but I wanted to evoke the romantic nostalgia and sweet fragrance of the poet’s narcissus. And I knew exactly where to start shopping.

I had come across David Burdick Daffodils (DBD) while searching online for some other thing that I no longer recall. I soon realized they had an amazing selection of narcissus, but as it was not the time to be ordering I bookmarked the site and went on. It is a testimony to how much the selection impresssed me that I went back looking for that bookmark more than a year later, when I decided my fall garden budget was going to be allocated to choice narcissus not much seen in gardens. The only difficulty would be in limiting myself to something less than one of everything. (And yes, I used a spreadsheet to help me decide.) These are the ones that made the final cut:

Angel

I don’t know where I saw a photograph of ‘Angel,’ but I know it was love at first sight. In the 1990s it was one of the more expensive daffodils–The Daffodil Mart was selling it for $28 for 25 bulbs in 1996. In 1997 I decided expensive or no, I was going to have some–and it was no longer listed in The Daffodil Mart. It was no longer listed anywhere. Eventually I wrote to Becky Heath (the Heaths owned The Daffodil Mart at that time) and she led me to believe that something catastrophic had happened and that it would be many years before it was offered again–if ever. So I saved the 1996 catalog as a memento of my loss, a reminder that it is possible to be too prudent.

And how delighted I was to find it among Mr. Burdick’s offerings! There was no doubt in my mind that it was going on the order form. In the photo, the cup looks pale yellow. However, the Daffodil Mart described it as “very large white/white with small cup that sometimes has a tiny yellow rim” and DBD lists it in the all white page: “Another heavenly pure white, green-eyed flower. . . . has a smaller crinkled cup which opens pale yellow before going white.” You can be sure I will be giving you my own impression.

Rimmon

“The purity of white in its petals lasts forever, and the green-eyed white cup has a rim that progresses through shade after shade of yellow until ending golden,” reads the DBD catalog copy. Whereas ‘Angel’s’ cup starts out yellow and fades to white, this one starts out white and becomes progressively more yellow. Also, it is supposed to bloom earlier.

Vernal Prince

According to DBD, “Large distinctive pear shaped bulbs produce rounded flowers with overlapping petals of the purest white. The frilled, bowl shaped cup is a drop of crème-de-menthe in the center of a pad of melting butter.”

Malin Head

Once again, the DBD description: “Without a doubt the most rapid increaser of all the hybrid poeticus types we offer. The slightly reflexed flower form is very similar to Fanad Head’s, but Malin Head has an even more pastel-colored cup. Its wide zone of pale yellow seen upon opening soon washes near-white, retaining just the drop of jade green in the center and the thin coral red rim.”

“Substitutions”

Those are the lovelies I chose. But that was not all I found in the shipping box. I always make a point of writing down substitutions if I possibly can. True, I am sometimes after one particular plant, and only that one will do. But often I am on a binge, and can say, “If you don’t have double-flowered primrose x, give me another double-flowered primrose in this price range.” Even more often, I have to pare down my order in an agony of indecision, and I put all the “almost-made-its” on the substitution list. When you deal with the smaller growers, they often look at that list and give you something on it, even if they don’t need to substitute. Sometimes they have more on hand than they expected, or they feel the quality of what they are sending you is not up to their standards. On the DBD order form, I had written in the “Preferred Substitutions” space:

If any of the narcissus are sold out, please send another one of equal price that is white with a small cup. No pink cups. Fragrance is a plus.

Mr. Burdick sent me three extra bulbs.

Achnasheen

Two of these beauties were included “to make up for small sized ‘Rimmon’ and ‘Angel’ – both victims of Oct. 2005 flood damage,” as the handwritten note on the packing slip explained. On his website, this bulb is tersely noted as a “Prolific bulb producer; great cut flowers. Late Mid Season,” but “Beautiful late small cup – not much fragrance” is appended by hand to the paper stapled to the bulb bag.

Eland

“To try with thanks” was the only explanation given for the inclusion of this bulb. I couldn’t find it listed on the DBD 2006 website, but the typewritten description on the bag said, “The first all-white hybrid to join our list of dependable garden jonquils for the northeast. Mostly two, but sometimes three, rounded and fragrant flowers per stem. The short cup opens with a lemony tone, which soon pales to match the clean color of its petals. Around since 1968, when Grant Mitsch of the U.S.A. introduced it. Precious few have since tried to supercede it.”

I have a lot to look forward to this spring; however, Mr. Burdick’s discomfiture at the size of ‘Angel’ and ‘Rimmon’ leads me to believe that they might not be blooming size this year. None of them have poked through the earth yet, though almost all my other narcissus have emerged at least an inch from the soil, which is still frozen in spots. This does not alarm me, as I am accustomed to relocated daffodils being a bit off schedule. Did you notice how many of them were described as vigorous, or good multipliers? I hope eventually to be growing some of these in larger groupings in less frequently mown areas, with plenty on hand for a bouquet for my DH.

How about you? Is there any flower that holds particular meaning for you?

Photo credits: Narcissus ‘Rimmon’ and ‘Vernal Prince’ photos by Anne Nigrelli, used with permission of David Burdick. The following photos were obtained from DaffSeek, a service of the American Daffodil Society, and used with permission of Nancy Tackett. N.’Angel’–Tony James; N. ‘Malin Head’–Kirby Fong; N. ‘Achnasheen’–Wells Knierim; and N. ‘Eland’–George Tarry.

First I’d better define my terms. By narcissus, I mean plants in the genus Narcissus, which many know as daffodils or jonquils. By heirloom, I mean that I inherited them. There is probably an official definition of “heirloom” as relates to Narcissus, but I don’t know what it is. I have seen some of my daffodils called heirloom in other places, but I haven’t made a positive i.d. on all of them, so the names by which I call them have either been discovered after some research or simply made up. I will describe them all in order of their bloom time. Several of the heirloom narcissus that are growing in my garden now were growing here when I arrived. Most of them, however, were growing blind, and I didn’t know what I had. (Growing blind means foliage is coming up but there are no flowers. One cause of this is overcrowding due to not being divided for years and years.) I dug them up, divided and replanted them, and it sometimes took two or three years before I was rewarded with a blossom. These trumpet daffodils bloom early, earlier than the ‘Rijnveldt’s Early Sensation’ planted elsewhere on the property, and as you might suspect of a plant that survives long periods of neglect, they bloom and grow vigorously. How fortunate that I planted them near the road, where the whole neighborhood can enjoy them.
These are interplanted with the trumpet daffodils along the road. I had no idea I had two different kinds of daffodils on my hands, and I had never seen any like this. This daffodil is known as ‘Van Sion’ or ‘Telamonius Plenus.’ According to Scott Kunst of Old House Gardens (OHG), when at its best the “doubling is neatly contained within the trumpet.” I have a vague memory of seeing one or two like that, sort of like finding a four-leaf clover. The blossom in the lower right corner of the photo is about as neat and tidy looking as mine ever get. More often the petals look almost shredded, rightly earning the common name I understand they have in the South: green and yellow mops. And they are pleasantly, though not strongly, fragrant.
These are my favorites,blooming mid-season. The first time I saw them bloom, I thought, “How sweet!” and dubbed them ‘Kathy’s Sweetheart.’ (True confession: I am capable of bending over a flower and saying, “What a sweetheart you are!” but I would never say that to a dog or a cat. The only cat I ever appreciated was an expert rodent hunter yet very tolerant of young children, and I was perfectly content to let my children do the petting, cuddling, etc.) Debi Lampman, owner of Bedlam Gardens in King Ferry, NY, calls them Butterfly Daffs, because they flutter in the breeze like butterflies. And I have often wondered if they are the same flower that Fedco calls ‘Sara’s Stars:’

Flowers open with six distinct light yellow daisy-like petals (the stars) surrounding a small yellow cup. Petals fade toward white as the blooms mature. We’ve been on the trail of their official name for years. Sara brought them to Maine in the early 1960s from Brookline, MA. Durable and prolific.

That’s exactly how they do for me: open yellow and fade toward white. And I think I finally discovered their true name (not that I’m going to stop calling them ‘Kathy’s Sweetheart’). The picture of ‘White Lady’ in the Old House Gardens online catalog seems to match the flower in my garden. It was introduced in 1897. My house was built before then, so now I get to wonder which occupant is the one who planted the original bulb(s) from which mine are descended. And did they actually buy some, or did another gardener pass them along? Neither Fedco nor OHG mentions that these flowers are sweetly fragrant as well as demure and delicate, which I find surprising. Why do so many companies leave out fragrance in their catalog descriptions?
These were given to me by my sister-in-law, who got them from someone else. They look pretty much like OHG’s picture of ‘Trevithian’ or maybe even ‘Sweetness,’ yet these jonquils listed in the OHG catalog are considered hardy only to Zone 6. Well, we all know hardiness zones can be wrong, don’t we? They hardly bloomed at all for several years, and then this year they bloomed like crazy. The big difference, I think, is that last summer it was especially hot. And their fragrance is wonderful, but not like what I associate with daffodils–these little guys smell like honeysuckle. The most I can conclude is that they must at least have jonquil ancestry in them, even if they’re not pure jonquils. I wonder if I can find a “hot spot” for them, so they’ll bloom more consistently?

Narcissus poeticus [recurvus]: These were here when we moved in, and I also got some from my in-laws in 1993. They are often called Poet’s Narcissus or Pheasant’s Eye, but in my husband’s family they are simply called narcissus (as opposed to daffodils). I believe they were growing on the land when his parents moved in. They grew in rows in a field, almost as if someone had raised them to sell at one point. These are the first flowers my husband ever gave me, and my first introduction to the concept that daffodils are fragrant, so they will always hold a special place in my heart. You might even say they are a family emblem as well as an heirloom, and they were incorporated in the original logo for this website. White Flower Farm describes them nicely:

the true Pheasant’s Eye, with strongly reflexed white petals; a small, red-rimmed yellow cup; and a spicy fragrance. It’s also one of the very last Daffodils to bloom. Heirloom, early 1800s. Very late.

I think of them as blooming at the same time as our apple trees, but this year the apple trees bloomed first. Here they line the path into the Secret Garden:

This is the double form of Poet’s Narcissus, also known as Narcissus poeticus var. odoratus ‘Albus Plenus’ or Albus Plenus Odoratus if you go way back. I have always found the double and the single growing together, and it is my understanding (though I can’t find it mentioned anywhere) that it is a naturally occurring sport of the single Narcissus poeticus.

Snowy white and richly fragrant, double pheasant eyes are one of the few daffodils that show up on almost every daffodil list from Clusius in 1601 through catalogs of the early 1900s. Carolus Clusius, a plants man in Antwerp, Belgium described and pictured ‘Double Poet’s’ in 1601.(‘APO’ dates to 1861.) Though they tend to be erratic bloomers, but in the right spot or good years, they’re heavenly. Plant in full or partial sun. Grows 16-18″ tall. Zones 3-8.

(I found the description both here and here, and don’t know who is the original writer. It could be they both got it from the same source, such as a Dutch bulb wholesaler.) I marked all the doubles one year, dug them up and planted them in a different location. Now I’m not sure that was such a good idea. The euphemism “erratic bloomers” refers to the fact that the buds often blast, which means, you get buds, but then something happens and they rot or shrivel without ever opening. I have read several theories on what causes this, and have given up trying to figure out why. In a “good year” they are spectacular by themselves, or blooming in contrast with a purple columbine or an early veronica. But in a bad year, when all the buds blast . . . let’s just say they benefit from the camouflage of their exuberantly blooming single cousins, thought they do tend to open a bit later than them.

These are not all the Narcissus I grow, but these are the ones that not only have a history in terms of cultivation in gardens, but also a history of personal associations and memories for me and my family. I’ll always be acquiring one more daffodil, but I’ll never get rid of any of these.