A Big Daffodil Thank You to the Blotanical Readers!!

As I promised, May would be a much better blogging month for me. Classes ended about two weeks ago and I wanted to get started right away with some intro posts about the rose garden since I am a huge fan of growing antique roses. I was just sitting down this morning to blog about the Kentucky Herb Festival from last weekend, when I decided to do some poking around Blotanical for some catching up. To my wonderful surprise, the Blotanical readers have been busy little bees and have identified my mystery daffodils (see April post)!!

It all started with Pleasant Hill Rambles' post about his fascination with my daffodils followed by his serendipitous discovery of the same daffodils at his neighbor's farm in New York! As he blogged about my blog and his find, another blogger, The Occasional Gardener, piped up with the solution to our mystery....drum roll please...the Van Sion Daffodil! Linked through these blogs was a wonderful post about the Van Sion....and as a historian, I added a whoop to Pleasant Hill's when I learned how old it is....at least 1620! Ironically, this daffodil is the only daffodil that I planted in the antique rose garden because of readily available space when we moved. It may now lift its head proudly as an ancient regally named variety just as important as the ancient roses that have looked down on it for all these years as a "mystery mutant". Welcome Van Sion, now your story can be passed along when neighbors ask disdainfully..."What is it?".

Primitive Daffodil Mystery

Old abandoned farms and fence rows are wondrous places. Each spring and summer they bring forth echoes of those country gardeners who came before us. Many of my antique roses were discovered on the side of the road in hidden nooks and crannies of our Central Kentucky counties; long abandoned, but still true to their original planting form. On some occasions, the discovery leans toward a mutated or primitive version of what was planted years ago. I have such an example that we dug up about ten years ago, along a back road fence row in Bourbon County. Upon first sight, these daffodil like plants in no way resembled the current popular form. They had the correct stalks and shoots from the ground, but the blooms resembled a regurgitated green mass of twisted petals. They appeared to be the green rose equivalent of the daffodil world. Despite their very unattractive appearance, we dug them up and brought them home to our garden. The bulbs were very deep, and not easy to extract, but once we let them grow for a few years in their new home, they morphed back a little into yellow regurgitations with twisted petals. Over the next ten years, we moved them, divided them to create more clumps, and in perfect harmony, each batch has transformed into the following form:

This was their first appearance in early March just as the snow was melting. (see previous post for exact date)

The next two photos demonstrate the bud formation just as they are beginning to open...note the strong green appearnce.

This looks like a very angry bud to me.

The curling green around this bud is a wild onion...evidence of my needing to weed. And yes, growing right alongside our Easter Bonnets with no crossing effects.

And so you have it, our mysterious primitive daffodils in all their glory. This photo shows clearly the early stage as resembling something from Little Shop of Horrors, complete with teeth, while the more mature blossom is an explosion of petals, with much of the green faded away. If any of you have similar garden inhabitants, please share. Or if this resembles a variety you are familiar with, that would also be interesting. I'm sure some of you may also be able to fill me in on the parentage of current varieties that might help solve this little mystery. However, keep in mind, this little beauty is from a very old abandoned farm.

And on a side note: I apologize for having been such a lax blogger these days. My semester is over in about three weeks so I will be a much better blogger in May! I greatly appreciate all of your comments, but am way behind on responding to many of them. And welcome to all of the new bloggers I noticed as I take a small break to check in with my favs....it's springtime in blotanical as the new arrivals burst forth!! Sure wish I had more time to read them...Hoping May comes quickly!

Happy spring gardening! It's finally here!

Blotanical Blog Directory

Since they're threatening a really large snow storm, I probably won't be going out to take photos of my primitive daffodils coming up out in the rose garden anytime soon. So I might as well take the remaining winter days to point you to Blotanical. Most of you who visit my blog come through there already, but for those of you who do not or for those of you who need to be persuaded to explore its features more, this post is for you. Blotanical is so user friendly and geared toward the visual nature of gardeners that it cannot help but be addictive. As a fairly new directory, they don't suffer from overkill or so many blogs that you become overwhelmed, but they do have enough blogs and locales represented that you can quickly get happily immersed in the stories, struggles, triumphs and photos of these talented and devoted gardeners. Another really unique part of Blotanical is the plot feature which encourages fellow garden bloggers to get to know one another and to share their areas of expertise which fosters an atmosphere of a global gardening community instead of just another list of blogs.

What better way to fight the winter blues and spark the spring fever.....explore Blotanical!