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Anticipation

© Mary Lou Gripshover

Anticipation. As I write this at the end of February, I look forward to seeing the first daffodil of spring. In some parts of the country, blooms are already up, and before March is over, I’ll surely have lots of daffodils in bloom. Yes, there have been a few blooms in the coldframe, but they don’t really count. It’s bloom outside that counts as the beginning of “The Season.” In the meantime, I enjoy the snowdrops, winter aconites, and early crocus. And the hellebores have buds showing, so if it doesn’t get really, really cold, they should look good in a couple of weeks.

First bloom in the open for me is always a miniature daffodil. And often it’s a toss up between the little miniature yellow trumpets, ‘Wee Bee,’ ‘Bagatelle,’ and ‘Small Talk.’ (pictured) The first two listed are quite similar, but ‘Small Talk’ is distinctive, with its narrower petals. I find that ‘Small Talk’ is also the best grower of the three, increasing with abandon. These are followed closely by ‘Lilliput’ and some of my own little bi-color trumpet seedlings.

Some years ‘Rijnveld’s Early Sensation,’ a yellow trumpet daffodil, joins these earliest bloomers, but very often in my climate the buds get frozen. A friend in Tennessee has had them in bloom for several weeks already.

Another group which blooms early is Division 6, for cyclamineus hybrids. All yellow ‘Cornet,’ orange and yellow ‘Jetfire’ and ‘Emperor’s Waltz,’ the yellows ‘Swift Arrow,’ ‘Warbler,’ and ‘The Alliance’(pictured) brighten the early March days. While these are not miniature size, they are generally smaller than the trumpets that come a bit later.

The consistently earliest trumpet daffodil in my garden is the white and yellow ‘Prologue.’ It is certainly aptly named. ‘Honeymoon,’ in pale yellow, follows right on its heels, to be followed quickly by all yellow ‘Habit.’ The smaller-flowered ‘Sweetness,’ an all yellow jonquil hybrid, adds its beauty and perfume shortly thereafter.

Anticipation. It’s also a time of anticipating the catalogs from the growers, to see what new introductions are in their offerings. Some of the catalogs have great color photos, so you can see what the daffodils actually look like. When I say “growers,” I’m referring to the people who actually do the breeding of daffodils, not the general bulb catalogs. Those usually come later.

The “early list” from Mitsch Daffodils has arrived, with cultivars which will not be listed in the main catalog. On it I found ‘Blue Danube,’ a white trumpet which I have been coveting for some years. It was listed several years ago on introduction, but has not been listed since. Mitsch Daffodils also list some Jackson-bred daffodils. Jackson Daffodils is in Australia, and so by getting them from Mitsch Daffodils, they are already acclimated to the Northern Hemisphere. The Mitsch catalog usually arrives in late March, and has lots of color photos.

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