Horticulturist, Jim Pirhalla lends his thoughts to one of his favorite Daffodil cultivars:

To me, for all of the garden plants, daffodils (Narcissus spps.) have it made. Let me explain. After a long hard winter when even a yellow gum wrapper or a red cola can in the yard tricks one into believing that spring has arrived, here comes the daffodil. Other plants that emerge later in the spring are probably thinking to themselves, “They show up, with their nice, clean green foliage and bright, mister sun-shine faces. Where is the competition for these guys?” And when virtually the only other thing that is leafing out along a busy country roadside is multi-flora rose, how can anyone not notice the bright yellow flower of the daffodil which was probably planted decades ago when the site was once better tended.

Daffodils are a relatively fool-proof plant. That is, as long as they are planted in a spot that will get plenty of sun while the foliage is still green. Also, if you plant your daffodils in turf, avoid mowing until the foliage starts to yellow. And don’t plant the bulbs too deeply in the ground. All of these things will send your daffodils into a sure decline with little to no bloom.

Personally, one of my favorite daffodil cultivars is Narcissus ‘Ceylon’. It grows on average to 14”-18” in height with yellow petals, as one grower describes as “buttercup”. It has an orange to orange/red corona with a cup of medium proportion. Its bloom time is a bit earlier than most daffodils, around early to mid spring. For my garden, that would be typically in early April. It is also touted as being a long bloomer and I would say from my personal experience, that would be true. ‘Ceylon’ has, in my opinion, a simple yet “country nobility” look about it and is a daffodil that is not going to be obtrusive in size in the landscape, but is also not going to be lost in it as well. I would say that Narcissus ‘Ceylon’ is a perfect daffodil for a landscape of modest proportion. Plant some bulbs this fall and enjoy these true beauties next spring!

A not so successful snowdrop shot

The morning light crests the hill.  The birds are singing their spring songs.  I have the garden to myself.  I take a deep breath, I bend forward. I exhale. I take a deep breath and come back to standing.  I take a deep breath and bend at the knees to a crouching position.  I breathe and stretch a little further.  I exhale and come back to standing.  No, I am not practicing yoga in the garden (though that might be nice). I am contorting my body and holding my breath to capture that perfect photo of the March Bank in its full snowdrop glory.  I wish I could say that I got the result I was looking for.  The truth is that the camera can not fully deliver the experience of seeing something in person.  I had what I thought to be the right elements in place; morning light, overcast conditions, multiple angles yet it barely captured what I was seeing.

My husband was a professional photographer in an earlier life and has provided me some tutelage along the way.  I set up the scenario of my “yoga shots” and asked him what went wrong.  He mentioned a few terms—manually opening the aperature, bracketing, f-stops—things that the average “point and shoot” photographer may not know.  Essentially it comes down to the camera’s light meter averaging out all that it was taking in—pure white, reflective flowers on a dark background. The camera “averaged to middle grey”; the end result, a mediocre picture.   He went on to sing the praises of the of the human brain; how our eyes are constantly “adjusting the light meters”, continuously sending multiple exposures to our brain and our brain seamlessly puts them together to create the perfect picture and the perfect experience. 

 I bring up my photographic failure not because I enjoy public humiliation but to emphasize that there is no replacement for the true experience.  This is becoming more and more relevant as we enter the instantaneous digital-virtual world of webcams, video, and photography and where one can “tour” a garden or museum over the computer.  It is great to be able to type in a few key words and have an image of Van Gogh’s Starry Night magically appear on the computer screen but it is no substitution for the real thing; looking closely at the brush strokes and then stepping back and seeing the image that is created and the emotion that is evoked at that moment. 

Gardens by their nature, in close alliance with sporadic weather, consistently create a certain “viewing urgency” similar to the final days of an art exhibition. Friday’s unseasonable temperatures in the 70’s pushed a lot of things into flower and a lot of things out of flower.  If you missed the large sweeps of snowdrops this year then mark it on your calendar for 2012.  If you want to see the March Bank in its “blue phase”, the period when the entire hillside transforms into a blue oasis, then plan on a visit this week and if you can swing it, visit at different times of the day.  The mood of the March Bank changes dramatically between the rising and setting of the sun. The continuous movement and intensity of the sunlight plays off of the rolling nature of the hillside, creating shadows and depth of color in some spaces while highlighting other locations.   Like the Van Gogh painting, a great amount of detail can be viewed from up close—variations in flowers and in foliage color,  but the view from afar is pure drama.  Blue is another color that is difficult to truly capture through the lens; it often can appear more purple in color than what our eyes see. I have witnessed the March Bank in this performance role for 20 years now and no two experiences are alike.  One year the effect lasted for 3 weeks, one year it hardly even made an appearance and one year I witnessed the blue at near sunset and it was electric; this is the moment where I remember the drama and emotion.  I am confident that the lens could not have captured that…

This is a time when the horticulturist who cares for the March Bank takes a deep breath from all of the hard work in preparation for this moment (she does not “tip toe through the tulips”). However, in sections where bulbs such as snowdrops are not part of a successional planting we will divide and transplant the clumps to increase their presence in the garden. Snowdrops (Galanthus) and snowflake (Leucojum) can be divided “in the green” meaning after flower when the foliage is still present. It is recommended with most others bulbs to divide as the foliage is going dormant or in the fall. This may be the best practice but I find that I tend to divide all of my bulbs after flower as it allows me to better visualize their placement. The hastiness on my part may result in a reduction of flower the following year but it is a system that works best for me—otherwise the job may never get done. With gardening tasks we must know thyself!

This last weekend we offered a guided walk through the March Bank to enjoy the snowdrops, winter aconite, snowflake, and crocuses. One of the questions that comes up often, but that I am always a little hesitant to answer, is “how many bulbs are there in the March Bank?” I always say millions, with my fingers crossed behind my back because after all, I have not counted them.

I decided to answer this nagging doubt of mine. Using Google Earth I plotted the area of the March Bank, basically following the boundaries of the area we have used for the March Bank restoration, but slightly smaller. I drew a line from Scroll Garden up to the 1750 house, then down to Magnolia Bend, but I excluded the Glade. The area enclosed by this measurement is 6.9 acres or 300,564 square feet.

Looking at a square foot of ground in the March Bank I chose a very conservative estimate of 10 bulbs per square foot. This is very conservative – some square feet clearly have 40-50 bulbs but then again there are some areas with almost no bulbs, and of course there are paths and watercourses devoid of bulbs. Ten is probably a fair guess.

Multiply 300,564 by 10 bulbs/square foot (notice how ‘10’ makes my math nice and easy) and you get 3,005,640 bulbs. Even if my assumptions are off by half, we would still have more than a million bulbs. I would propose that saying the March Bank has ‘millions of bulbs’ is well within the margin of error.

I would like to thank the 93 visitors who came on the walk on Saturday as well as our own staff members Tom and Amy. It was a beautiful day to enjoy the March Bank and to contemplate millions of bulbs.

A few mild winter days have brought out our earliest bulbs in the March Bank and on the East Terrace. Hundreds and thousands of cold-hardy snowdrops, eranthis, crocus, and adonis make it worth a late winter, chilly walk.