Gardening

Daffodils in the landscape

Denis Wood

It is fitting to see daffodils in large drifts of one kind growing in the grass as we see native Lent Lilies in sheets in water meadows.

To be seen from a distance, tall ones can be chosen. Of these those that speak most clearly of spring are what are known as bi-colours, with white perianths and yellow. usually pale yellow, trumpets or crowns. Of these Bodilly and Polindra were both raised by P. D. Williams at Lanarth in Cornwall.

They are fairly tall and their crowns pale yellow, giving what a friend once called a buttered-eggs effect. They have been dropped out of large growers' catalogues but I think can still be had from Kelways at Langport in Somerset. Newer ones are Trousseau (also from P. D.Williams, in 1934) which* has shades of apricot in its yellow' trumpet as it opens and before it fades to cream, and the enormous Tudor Minstrel (Richardson, 1948) with its five-inch white perianth disc and cup of gold. Of the all-yellow trumpets, King Alfred is a bad naturaliser. Carl ton, a good clear yellow, is a much better daffodil to choose and a proved naturaliser. More emphatic ones are Golden Harvest and Rembrandt.

The archetypal red and. yellow was Fortune which was raised as long ago as 1923 and caused a

sensation when it was first introduced at the Birmingham show. It is still in growers' lists and is a good naturaliser but there are newer ones with a more

pronounced contrast of orange-red with yellow such as Carbineer (A. M. Williams in Cornwall, 1927) and the immense Sun Chariot (Richardson, 1943).

For white ones, Cantatrice (GuV Wilson, 1936) is a proved na turaliser and at a price of £3.85 a dozen could perhaps just be afforded. It is an outstanding, aris

tocratic flower, much better bred than Mount Hood which might be the alternative, a coarser flower but only 86p a dozen.

Reversed bi-colours in which the trumpet or crown is paler than the perianth are unusual and one of them, Binkie, has been proved to be a good naturaliser. On first opening the whole flower is clear sulphur-lemon, but the crown passes slowly to almost pure white. A drift of these in the dappled shade of trees is an especial delight.

Those which will be seen close at hand can be much smaller.

There is a beautiful trio of cyclamineus hybrids all raised by C. F. Coleman and all growing to no more than 12 inches. Charity May is pure golden yellow all through, Dove Wings has a white

perianth with a primrose yellow cup and Jenny, the most expensive Of the sisters, pure white when the

flower matures. .

For naturalising in grass, drifts should be as large as possible and calculated at the rate of fifteen bulbs per square yard. This works out at an average of 9 inches apart, but the way to plant them is to take them from the bag and roll them gently out making a few obvious corrections in the spacing. Some will be only 4 to 5 inches apart, others perhaps 12 or 14 inches. They must be planted with a good 3 inches of soil above their noses. Mixed daffodils by the hundredweight lead only to disaster. A spotted effect of different sorts coming up at different times.