Amid the gloom, sightings of blue sky enhance the brilliance of yellow daffodils that proclaim the rush of spring in this sheltered valley. On roadsides and in steep regenerating woodland, wind-battered, flamboyant narcissi flower year after year, discarded in the past in favour of newer commercial varieties, and naturalised in abandoned, steep market gardens.
On our patch, a succession of old-fashioned trumpeted daffodils precede paler, small-cupped varieties, many growing in rows planted before the second world war. The earliest would have been picked in February, bunched and boxed for market in full flower, unlike modern types, grown on a field scale and sent away in tight bud. Dainty ‘Henry Irving’ on long stems is the first, followed by ‘Van Sion’ opening to frilly trumpets coloured like free-range egg yolks. This, the oldest variety, first named in 1620, was planted in little orchards marked on the 1840 tithe map; fruit trees have died or been cleared away, but these distinctive double daffodils thrive on adjoining hedge banks. Similar to the indigenous lent lily, my favourite is ‘Princeps’ with primrose yellow, slender trumpet and fluttering petals – first mentioned in 1830 and maybe of Italian stock.
Other sorts, named before 1900, include vivid ‘Golden Spur’, tall ‘King Alfred’, the paler orange-tinged ‘Sir Watkin’, known as the mountain daffodil, and ‘Emperor’ and sturdy ‘Victoria’, both with creamy white petals surrounding golden trumpets. The prolific, dazzling ‘Helio’ is a large-cupped daffodil of the early 20th century; large buttery flowers of ‘Carlton’ are at their best now, as is ‘Fortune’, whose corona glows coppery, like the plumage of the cock pheasant patrolling his territory.
The previous occupier of this ground grazed her house cow on these steep slopes, but encroaching brambles protected the rows of bulbs. Almost 50 years on, the former grazed area is planted with local apple and cherry trees interspersed with the long-standing daffodils, strimmed just once a year. Woodland overgrows neglected plots of once intensively cultivated, hardy narcissi, now coexisting with ferns, primrose, bluebell, wild arum and dog’s mercury, and where the chiffchaff has just returned to its familiar habitat.
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