With more than 26,000 to choose from, it can be agonising deciding which narcissus to grow. Charles Quest-Ritson asks daffodil doyenne Christine Skelmersdale for ideas.
NOTHING beats daffodils as a symbol of spring. Their yellow cheerfulness tells us that winter is gone and will not come again. Even if their flowering coincides with snow or frost enough to flatten their stems, they pick themselves up again as soon as temperatures rise.
Deciding which ones to grow isn’t easy: there are 26,000 registered cultivars. ‘It’s best to choose those ones that have been given Awards of Garden Merit (AGM) by the RHS,’ says Christine Skelmersdale. ‘They will be weatherproof, garden-worthy and hold their flowers well clear of their leaves.’
No one knows more about daffodils than Christine, who’s run Broadleigh Gardens, the mail-order nursery for small bulbs, for more than 40 years. Her advice is founded on growing 250 different cultivars in her Somerset garden, seeing narcissus species in the wild and spending more than 30 years as a member of the RHS Daffodil & Tulip Committee, as well as testing thousands of new daffodils in the RHS trials and mounting innumerable gold-medal-winning exhibits at Chelsea and other shows up and down the country.
Christine never meant to be a nurserywoman. Having read geography at university and trained as a teacher, she went out to work in rural Zambia. There, she met a handsome young Englishman called Roger Bootle- Wilbraham and married him back home in England in February 1972.
Roger was a fully trained professional horticulturist and wanted to start a wholesale nursery in Somerset to grow winter-flowering shrubs. However, the opportunity came along, in May 1972, to buy a well-established nursery business, founded by Alec Gray, that specialised in dwarf narcissus.
This story is from the {{IssueName}} edition of {{MagazineName}}.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the {{IssueName}} edition of {{MagazineName}}.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Tales as old as time
By appointing writers-in-residence to landscape locations, the National Trust is hoping to spark in us a new engagement with our ancient surroundings, finds Richard Smyth
Do the active farmer test
Farming is a profession, not a lifestyle choice’ and, therefore, the Budget is unfair
Night Thoughts by Howard Hodgkin
Charlotte Mullins comments on Moght Thoughts
SOS: save our wild salmon
Jane Wheatley examines the dire situation facing the king of fish
Into the deep
Beneath the crystal-clear, alien world of water lie the great piscean survivors of the Ice Age. The Lake District is a fish-spotter's paradise, reports John Lewis-Stempel
It's alive!
Living, burping and bubbling fermented masses of flour, yeast and water that spawn countless loaves—Emma Hughes charts the rise and rise) of sourdough starters
There's orange gold in them thar fields
A kitchen staple that is easily taken for granted, the carrot is actually an incredibly tricky customer to cultivate that could reduce a grown man to tears, says Sarah Todd
True blues
I HAVE been planting English bluebells. They grow in their millions in the beechwoods that surround us—but not in our own garden. They are, however, a protected species. The law is clear and uncompromising: ‘It is illegal to dig up bluebells or their bulbs from the wild, or to trade or sell wild bluebell bulbs and seeds.’ I have, therefore, had to buy them from a respectable bulb-merchant.
Oh so hip
Stay the hand that itches to deadhead spent roses and you can enjoy their glittering fruits instead, writes John Hoyland
A best kept secret
Oft-forgotten Rutland, England's smallest county, is a 'Notswold' haven deserving of more attention, finds Nicola Venning
