It’s sunny in England at the moment, and I am beginning to think it might be illegal to meet up with anyone and NOT talk about the weather and how much better we all feel with a ‘bit of sun’. However, there’s something else that I wonder isn’t making us happier…
Yes, it’s daffodil time. The photo above is from my garden, but even the most boring roundabout is prettier somehow…
True, there aren’t as many money stories around daffodils as there are around tulips and tulipmania, but apparently there are over 200 different varieties. And many different names. My bible, The Englishman’s Flora by Geoffrey Grigson, gives the local, Latin and sometimes Celtic names for hundreds of plants and flowers, and there are some charming ones for varieties of daffodils. Were you aware of the Gracie Day, the Lady’s Ruffles or Lenty Lily?
I love them all, but think I will refer to those in my garden as Dillydaffs from now on. Although Gooseflop also has a ring. Some varieties are just perfectly named already. Don’t these tete-a-tete in my garden look as if they are having a good gossip about the poor gardener they have to put up with?
There’s a wonderful page on the RHS website by Jenny Laville here about the myths and legends to do with daffodils. And you can log your daffodil sightings here…
And I do think, somewhere in the back of my mind, there’s a famous poem some guy once wrote about daffodils…. although it’s this one by Robert Herrick I want to share here.
To Daffodils
by Robert Herrick
Fair Daffodils, we weep to see
You haste away so soon;
As yet the early-rising sun
Has not attain’d his noon.
Stay, stay,
Until the hasting day
Has run
But to the even-song;
And, having pray’d together, we
Will go with you along.
We have short time to stay, as you,
We have as short a spring;
As quick a growth to meet decay,
As you, or anything.
We die
As your hours do, and dry
Away,
Like to the summer’s rain;
Or as the pearls of morning’s dew,
Ne’er to be found again.
Isn’t ‘the hasting day’ beautiful? Robert Herrick’s dates are 1591—1674, and it never fails to amaze me that something someone wrote so long ago can still speak to us today. I was once told that reading a poem was like breathing with the original author – the line breaks help with that, and without being too romantic, the daffodils are allowing us to breathe again now that… have I mentioned it already… the sun is out in England!
Little trips out to see the daffodils certainly help in the middle of planning the launch of my poetry collection about the life and work of Lancelot Brown. And look, in researching for this piece, I came across a Capability Brown daffodil. Appropriately beautiful and something I now obviously HAVE to have in my own garden!
They (all daffodils, not just Lancelot’s!) are also a sign of good luck apparently so I was delighted to see two magpies frolicking in them in our local park. So I wish double double luck to you all!
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