A host of golden daffodils – well three anyway!
Last autumn I planted a circle of small, yellow daffodils. I knew one of them but two were new to me. They have flowered and I thought they deserved a mention. I have to say that, looking at the intricacies of some of the fancier flowers it is something of a relief to enjoy these simpler blooms.
I am a bit obsessed with fancy narcissus but I wanted something simple in this place, under the hazels and I am glad that I chose these. My mistake was in not realising how small one of them was! The photo above shows all three with ‘Golden Spur’ on the right for comparison. ‘Golden Spur was featured yesterday and is an old yellow trumpet and certainly not gigantic, so you can see these are small.
First is the Tenby daffodil (N. obvallaris). This has an RHS Award of Garden Merit and is a wild plant first described in 1796. It has flowers of pure yellow with a lobed corona (trumpet) and has so far reached about 20cm high. It is often recommended for naturalising in grass so should be tough. It is a cheerful little flower.
‘Say Cheese’ is a perky little flower of a slightly richer yellow and a slightly shorter and broader corona but otherwise quite similar. Of course, plants are not just about the flowers and vigour and weather resistance all combine to make a plant great. This one, bred by Carlos van der Veek and introduced in 2017, is said to be early to mid season with flowers 60mm across. I did not notice any fragrance with this one or any of the three.
The most exciting of the three is ‘Roundita’, bred by Leone Y Low, in Ohio, USA and introduced in 1998. It is a real sweetie with lemon yellow flowers that are perky and face fairly upright. The petals are quite rounded and the corona is rather funnel-shaped. The flower stems are about 15cm high and the flowers only 45mm across. At first I was a bit disappointed that the flowers were so small but this one is really growing on me. I am hoping that it is a strong grower and bulks up so there are lots of blooms next year.
Here you can see just how small it is, compared with ‘British Gamble’ – of which more tomorrow.
The Biking Gardener 
I still prefer ‘King Alfred’. I have difficulty trying anything new. However, I tried ‘Mount Hood’, because I thought it looked like ‘King Alfred’, but in white! I am glad I did. If only I could try others too. I should make a point of doing so.
The problem with ‘King Alfred’ is that it is not commonly available here and most of what is sold as it is not really ‘King Alfred’. There is still a lot of scammery around bulb sales. You do not always get what is supposed to be in the packet and by the time they flower you have disposed of the pack or can’t remember where you bought them. It is unfortunate that there seems to be an acceptance that it is pot luck whether you get what you pay for in much of horticulture. But that is a whole other issue.
I noticed the same, as well as cultivars that are supposed to be substitutes for ‘King Alfred’. As a grower, I can not understand why other growers just do not grow what consumers want. When we grew citrus, we grew more ‘Meyer’ lemons than any other citrus because that is what we sold the most of. I never did like growing it much. Conversely, I discontinued my favorite ‘Marsh’ grapefruit, because we could not sell enough of it.
People do not always want the things they should!
but growers should grow what people want, rather than limit their options or tell people what they want. (Otherwise, more of us would grow ‘Marsh’ grapefruit.)
We are fortunate that our garden conditions suit daffodils so well and that they grow so easily for us. The pink of ‘British Gamble’ is ……….mmmmmm not daffodilly.