"Pay attention to the world." -- Susan Sontag
 

Tag: spring

Rise of the Yellow-Yellow Daffodils (2 of 2)

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From “The Hybridiser’s Tale” in Daffodil: The Biography of a Flower by Helen O’Neill:

“There is probably no more daffodil-like daffodil than the Division 1a cracker called ‘King Alfred’, a plant so robust it has dwelt in my mother’s garden for at least the better part of a century…. As American Daffodil Society founding member George S. Lee Jr. pointed out in the Society’s 1966 Daffodil Handbook, sixty-seven years after this daffodil’s debut, it remained the most widely grown variety.

“‘Without question, the creation of King Alfred . . . was the greatest single advance ever made in the progress of daffodils,’ Lee wrote. ‘Those who think there is only one daffodil — the yellow trumpet seen in florists’ windows — have King Alfred in mind.’

“Upon its debut in 1899 this radiant flower immediately won over the Royal Horticultural Society’s Narcissus committee with its charisma, size, regal bearing and richly uniform gold tone. That year happened to be the millennial anniversary of the Anglo-Saxon King Alfred the Great’s death, hence its name. Percy Kendall, a grower from Devon, brought the flower to the committee, but Percy had not bred this flower; his father, John Kendall, a daffodil enthusiast and former solicitor who died nine years earlier, had. John was well known in the daffodil world and for the committee members, seeing ‘King Alfred’ must have been like meeting a ghost….”

From “Home Thoughts in Laventie” by E. Wyndham Tennant in Poems of To-day: Second Series by The English Association:

Beyond the church whose pitted spire
Seems balanced on a strand
Of swaying stone and tottering brick
Two roofless ruins stand,
And here behind the wreckage where the back wall
should have been
We found a garden green.

The grass was never trodden on,
The little path of gravel
Was overgrown with celandine,
No other folk did travel
Along its weedy surface, but the nimble-footed mouse
Running from house to house.

So all among the vivid blades
Of soft and tender grass
We lay, nor heard the limber wheels
That pass and ever pass
In noisy continuity until their very rattle
Seems in itself a battle.

At length we rose up from this ease
Of tranquil happy mind,
And searched the garden’s little length
A fresh pleasaunce to find;
And there some yellow daffodils
And jasmine hanging high
Did rest the tired eye….

Hello!

This is the second of two posts with photos of early yellow-yellow daffodils that I took last week. The first post is Rise of the Yellow-Yellow Daffodils (1 of 2).

About half of the photos in this post were taken here…

… where the plants seemed perfectly happy to cling to a damp, steep, leaf-filled hill.

I took this group of photos from the sidewalk at the bottom of the hill — which you can see in the lower right corner — having discovered that I couldn’t stand on the hill and lean in to take close-up photos without tipping over. It’s steeper than it looks in the photo and was still soggy from the previous day’s thunderstorms. That I couldn’t get physically closer to the flowers (praise be the zoom lens!) got me thinking about something: after long, drenching rains, why didn’t the plants just let loose and tumble down the hill? Of course they have roots, but I puzzled on the possibility that there was something about daffodils that might make them resilient enough to stick-put despite relentless assaults from the clouds.

So — as one does! — I approached my research assistant with a tentative question: “I recently took some photographs of daffodils growing on the side of a steep hill…. I couldn’t help but wonder how they manage to stay in place there, especially since we’d had a lot of recent rain. What keeps them from just detaching from the soil and falling down the hill?”

To wit (or “to which”), Claude responded with a nice overview of the daffodil’s special skills:

Daffodils have an impressive ability to anchor themselves on steep slopes through several adaptations:

Their bulb and root system is their primary anchor. Daffodil bulbs are surrounded by fibrous roots that spread outward and downward, creating a network that grips the soil effectively. The bulb itself can work its way deeper into the soil over time through contractile roots — specialized roots that can contract and literally pull the bulb deeper into the ground.

The bulb shape is also advantageous on slopes. Rather than being perfectly round, daffodil bulbs are somewhat elongated and pointed at the top, which helps them wedge into soil crevices. This teardrop shape provides stability against downward forces.

Over time, daffodils naturalize by producing offsets (daughter bulbs) that grow adjacent to the parent bulb. These create dense clumps with intertwined root systems that significantly increase their collective anchoring power — essentially forming natural retaining structures within the soil…. Their strong, fibrous stems can flex without breaking during wind or rain.

The ability to grow successfully on steep terrain is actually one reason daffodils have been so successful both in the wild and in garden settings. Their effective anchoring system allows them to colonize areas that many other plants cannot, giving them an ecological advantage.

So the next time you plant or transplant some daffodils (or look at some pictures of daffodil roots), you will now know that their root system is “designed” to cling to soil on a hill, and that little cluster of bulbs that look a bit like radishes have their own job to do, acting as anchors to protect the plant by holding it in place.

This variety produces smaller flowers than those in my first post — though as you can see from these daffodils of the future, they’re still in their early stages of growing and blooming…

… and I’m sure I’ll make another trip back to the gardens to see how they’re progressing.

The rest of the daffodils are from the side of this walkway, where they’re being used as border plants so pollinators (and photographers) can get to them easily by ambling down the brick path.

Thanks for reading and taking a look!

Rise of the Yellow-Yellow Daffodils (1 of 2)

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From Daffodil: The Remarkable Story of the World’s Most Popular Spring Flower by Noel Kingsbury:

“All wild daffodil species have now been used by daffodil breeders to produce the approximately twenty-seven thousand registered varieties, although the vast majority of garden and florist varieties are derived from genes from a limited number of species….

“The average garden daffodil has a big yellow flower with a big trumpet. ‘King Alfred’ (John Kendall, UK, 1899) is the best known and is everybody’s idea of a typical daffodil. It is derived from an Iberian species, Narcissus hispanicus, and if anything deserves the title of “ur-daffodil,” it is this. Narcissus hispanicus is a splendid plant, sturdy, richly coloured, early, and free-flowering. Only its distinctive perianth segments mark it out, as they are narrow and twisted — elegant but unlike the solid background for the trumpet we are used to. ‘King Alfred’ is a good example of [a Trumpet Daffodil], where each stem has a single flower where the length of the cup (i.e., the trumpet) is greater than or equal to the length of the perianth segments.

“Any cursory look at a collection of daffodils or at the pictures above the sale bins in a garden centre shows that there is a great deal of variation: there are white flowers and pale flowers, wide trumpets, narrow trumpets, trumpets which flare out a bit, and trumpets which veer towards orange, or even red-orange. There is often a difference in colour between the perianth segments and the cup… — these are referred to as bicolours, and it seems to be the general pattern that the cup is a richer yellow than the perianth segments. Except that there are some where the cup is paler than the perianth segments — these are known as reverse bicolours.”

From “From the Night of Forebeing” by Francis Thompson in Other Men’s Flowers: An Anthology of Poetry compiled by Archibald Percival Wavell:

Cast wide the folding doorways of the East,
For now is light increased!
And the wind-besomed chambers of the air,
See they be garnished fair;
And look the ways exhale some precious odours,
And set ye all about wild-breathing spice,
Most fit for Paradise!
Now is no time for sober gravity,
Season enough has Nature to be wise;
But now discinct, with raiment glittering free,
Shake she the ringing rafters of the skies
With festal footing and bold joyance sweet,
And let the earth be drunken and carouse!
For lo, into her house
Spring is come home with her world-wandering feet,
And all things are made young with young desires;
And all for her is light increased
In yellow stars and yellow daffodils….

Hello!

This is the first of two posts with photos of the earliest daffodils that pop out of the ground in late February and early March here in the Southeast — where one can find them in bunches adding pre-spring color to yards, along sidewalks, and at places like Oakland Cemetery. The photos in this first post were all taken here…

… at a gated memorial garden in one of the cemetery’s oldest sections, where it’s fun to try and photograph the daffodils from different angles outside the fence, while using the wrought-iron bench or the black steel fenceposts as elements of the backgrounds.

The photos in these two posts are of daffodils I like to call yellow-yellow, because both the flower petals and their trumpets are shades of the same yellow color. As the season progresses over the next couple of weeks, others with alternating combinations of white, yellow, and orange will make an appearance, even as the yellow-yellow ones continue their bloom cycle.

As you can see from the photos, it was an overcast day when I took them, yet the colors are still so luminous that each of the flowers treats our eyes to a nice glow. One effect of the filtered lighting, in this case, is to add a little saturation to the daffodil trumpets, giving them a slight yellow-orange color cast that contrasts with the more translucent yellow of the petals surrounding the trumpets. Overall, though, the bright color is an attraction signal for pollinators, especially at this time of year when much of the surrounding landscape is still covered in its flat winter shades of brown and gray. While the gardens still wear this winter coat, the daffodils and the flower clusters they create are highly visible from long distances to both humans with their cameras and those emerging pollinators that want to get a jump on their spring business.

Thanks for taking a look!

Orange and White Irises — and Creamsicles!

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From “The Quest for Orange” in The World of Irises, edited by Bee Warburton and Melba Hamblen: 

“The challenge of breeding a good orange iris that will thrive in all areas has resulted in many outstanding introductions in this color class. Although they have fallen short of perfection, usually because of their inability to adapt to variable climactic conditions, each one has contributed to general improvement in clarity of color, form, branching and vigor. Varieties that appear in pedigrees include: Suiter’s Orange Frills and Orange Crush; O. Brown’s Tantallon and Neon Magic; Fay’s Orange Chariot and Radiant Light; Marsh’s Prairie Blaze and Tangerine Sunset; Shoop’s Spanish Affair and Spanish Gift; B. Jones’s Bright Butterfly; Mayberry’s Orange Vista.”

From “Orange” in A Guide to Bearded Irises: Cultivating the Rainbow for Beginners and Enthusiasts by Kelly Norris:

“The citrusy range of tones we call orange makes my mouth water. Orange bearded irises sparkle and gleam on warm spring days, the perfect show for a mid-afternoon stroll through the garden with a mimosa. An orange bearded iris of some kind is an essential plant to grow.

“The history of orange bearded irises… traces back to breeding efforts with yellows and pinks, work that was by no means easy. Some of the first orange-colored irises, blends of off-colors or faint allusions to orange by present definitions, lacked good floral substance and architecture. Some of the best examples of these new colors came from crosses involving median irises (standard dwarf bearded, intermediate bearded, miniature tall bearded, and border bearded) and early dwarfs like Schreiner’s unregistered yellow ‘Carpathia’, coupled with further line breeding and use of apricot-colored irises that were the by-products of pink breeding. Many breeders have risen to the challenge of developing orange irises with distinctive colors, good form and substance, and sound growing habits.”

From “Kings, Commoners, and Cones” in Ice Cream: The Delicious History by Marilyn Powell:

“In 1872, the Hokey-Pokey, a frozen fruit bar on a stick, was available, but it was ahead of its time. The idea didn’t really catch on until about fifty years later, when Frank Epperson got the ‘novelty’ going again — that’s the term the trade still uses for pre-made, portable, individual treats….

“One night, Epperson, who manufactured powdered lemonade, left a full glass on the windowsill with a spoon in it. Overnight, the temperature dropped below freezing, and in the morning he realized that he’d produced something he could sell. He called it the Epsicle and patented it in 1924….

“The Epsicle became the Popsicle and proved an instant hit everywhere it was sold, in stands or stores or trucks, on city streets and boardwalks at the seashore, and in amusement parks. It was followed by the Creamsicle and all the other ‘sicles.'”

Hello!

Of all the irises I’ve photographed at Oakland Cemetery’s gardens, these varieties with orange standards and white falls are among my favorites (except for all the other color combinations, which are also my favorites). There are two different kinds here: those below the double row of asterisks are similar to some I’ve photographed before, and those above that row are new to me, and, very likely, new to the gardens. Their presence among a sea of many-colored tea roses made them especially fun to photograph, and I tried to keep some of the roses in the background (though softly focused) to represent the scenes as I remembered them.

Having seen this iris color combination again this year, I recalled how it originally unearthed some feelings of nostalgia — though I had previously not explored exactly what for. I imagined the colors reminded me of ice cream — specifically, a combo of orange sherbet and vanilla ice cream — and so actually went hunting at two grocery stores this week to see if I could find an icy treat in those colors. I eventually landed on Orange Cream Ice Cream — which is part ice cream and part sherbet — but once I got it home and dug into the container (yum!), I realized that it wasn’t quite what I was nostalgifying: the taste was about right but the blended and swirled colors didn’t seem to match what I was trying to uncover.

So I did some ice cream research (the things I do for my art!), searching for photos using phrases like “orange and white ice cream” or “vanilla and orange sherbet” and various variations. Eventually the internet presented an image of the Creamsicle — which I haven’t eaten since I was a kid, and didn’t even know still existed — and it clicked that that was the connection I was trying to make.

While I don’t think there’s necessarily any relationship between the development of orange — or orange and white — irises and the advent of the Creamsicle, I did find that brief history of how and when the Creamsicle came about (in the third quotation above). There’s some additional history on Wikipedia’s Ice Pop page. It’s probably good that the original (awkward!) name “Epsicle” didn’t stick, having been replaced by “Popsicle” and “Creamsicle.” And — as it turns out — despite the difficulties iris breeders had creating successful orange and white variants (crossing yellow and pink irises), there were eventually several that have been named like the Creamsicle, including Iris ‘Creamsicle’ and Iris ‘Seneca Creamsicle’ — both of which show a similar ruffled petal form, with the latter showing colors very close to those I photographed. So which came first: the frozen Creamsicle or the Iris Creamsicle? Nobody knows for sure — but it’s fascinating the connections one can make among things, even if they’re partly imaginary.

I should mention that while conducting my ice cream research, I found this recipe for Orange Creamsicle Pie — which looks Absolutely Fabulous and may mean another trip to the grocery store to get its ingredients.

Thanks for reading and taking a look!