Daffodil

These yellow daffodils came up every spring by the front door of our pond house. Frankly, I never knew their formal name. My garden book suggested they might be a “King Arthur” cultivar, but I couldn’t be sure. A search of the Internet didn’t give me the answer, either.

Of course, this is a technical point, of interest only to a few committed gardeners. After all, a daffodil by any other name…(as Shakespeare might say). Their color, form and pose are so expressive, is there any doubt why narcissus are beloved by all? Their origin is the western Mediterranean, my book says.

The lefthand photo I took on April 18, 2009. The middle one I shot two years later on April 12, 2011. Both are from the same batch of bulbs, growing in the same spot by the front door. The earlier photo shows the daffodils after a heavy rain. Their color appears less intense. Maybe it’s due to longer exposure to the elements, or just the softer light that always follows a rain.

The bicolor daffodil grew behind the house. I photographed it the same day as I shot the middle daffy. I was so touched by its beauty that I wrote the "margin poem," above. Several days later, it had wilted and was gone.

Note: You can enlarge the margin poem, wedged in-between the photos, simply by clicking on it.