Home » Plants & Animals » Daffodil Growing & Showing » Daffodils, May 8, 2001

Daffodils, May 8, 2001

© All Pictures by Clay Higgins

Daffodils on May 8, 2001 in my garden

I was busily deadheading my daffodil gardens this week but I kept getting surprises and decided to show a few more of my beauties from the garden.

Most surprising, the daffodils that are blooming this week are in my so called "early beds." I don't know what makes them early beds, but my division 9 poeticus daffodils along with the divison 3 short cupped daffodils still had a show to put on.

'Braid Song' pictured here is one of the new generation division 9 poets. It has a nice lovely look, whiter than white and petals that are not recurves. In other words, flat petals. I'm hoping this is the start of breeding new poeticus daffodils that can compete as "formal" daffodils.

'Braid Song' can almost be described as having a green cup with a slight orange rim on the tip, however, it was color coded as green, and yellow with an orange ring. That is in the same direction as the breeding of 'Green Lodge', below, has taken.

In this picture, 'Green Lodge' looks like an all green cup daffodil, however, if one looks closely, there is a slight orange ring on the tips of the cup.

I have often thought about trying to breed an all green daffodil. It looks like others may have been there before me, and have made some success.

In another picture, a seedling from Carncairn Daffodils, grown by Kate Reade in Northern Ireland, seedling Carncairn #20-17-82 is a 9W-GGO, or a white divison 9, with a cup that is green with an orange rim.

I expect this daffodil to be introduced in a couple of years as it is obviously show worthy. In a way, I'm sad that these great flowers didn't have a chance to go to the show. They are all winners in my book.

Another of the late performers discovered in the garden is a close relative of the division 9 poeticus, the division 3 short cupped daffodils. The original division three daffodils were said to be division 2 large cupped daffodils, crossed with the division 9 poeticus. In many of the short cupped daffodils, you can see the breeding with whiteness of the petals, and the green eyes and the red or orange rims on the divison 3 that is so characteristic of the division 9 poets.

'Dell Chapel' is classified as a short cupped daffodil that has a white cup with that division 9 forefather's red/orange rim on the cup.

The copyright of the article Daffodils, May 8, 2001 in Daffodil Growing & Showing is owned by All Pictures by Clay Higgins. Permission to republish Daffodils, May 8, 2001 in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.