Daffodil Journal 2020

It has been a while for sure, but I want to be consistent and do my yearly daffodil journaling. I feel I've had a lot of growth in daffodil knowledge over the past year.

Starting in November, I sowed daffodil seeds which I ordered from Australia. Many of those seeds are rather rare or exotic daffodils. Fortunately, all of each variety germinated! I was surprised, given the seasonal differences between northern and southern hemispheres, which resulted in the seeds being dormant longer than usual. Some of the seeds were several years old and germinated. All of the germination happened within a month.

I also sowed seeds collected from my own breeding, and all of them germinated except seeds from 'Gigantic Star'. I'll keep them watered in case they come up eventually.

I also joined the Georgia Daffodil Society. Tomorrow is their daffodil show, and I volunteered to be a clerk, which means I'll follow around the judges and take notes.

A week from now, and I'll be going to the American Daffodil Society national convention, which is a nation-wide show, with many talks and garden tours also, and tours of some commercial daffodil farms. I'm looking forward to meeting contacts I've made over the internet.

I've been corresponding with a few daffodillians from around the world. There's another daffodil breeder around my age in South Carolina who has been sharing a lot of info with me. He connected me with a guy in Spain who sells seeds of species daffodils. I have a ton of species daffodil seeds to start in the fall!

Anyway, here are some of my daffodils so far this year:

This is one of my first Autumn Colors daffodils, which actually started blooming around Christmas Day. This year I'll start watering it earlier so that it blooms in autumn.

This is another Autumn Colors daffodil. I love the deep orange concave cups. It has a wonderful honey-like fragrance, too. I pollinated it with a few other cultivars and it seems to have set a lot of seeds.

'Nir', an Israeli-bred paperwhite. I pollinated it with the white and orange Autumn Colors above and it seems to have set ample seed too.

'Stella Superba', a historic daffodil I rescued from my great grandmother's land near Birmingham. It has a nice fragrance and old-fashioned charm.

'Trevithian', one of my all-time favorites.

'Orange Queen', a new daffodil I acquired this year. This is also a historic daffodil, from the early 20th century. It looks like a smaller version of 'Trevithian', but with very densely-saturated color that almost does look orange in real life. Nearby daffodils look light yellow in comparison.

'Abba'. This double daffodil smells amazing. I moved it from a container into the ground this year. It's petit and looks nice at the front of the border.

'Autumn Pearl', a massive, long-lasting, magnificent daffodil, like a cream-colored paperwhite. It's very sterile in the breeding department, though. It was bred by the late Bill Welch, who died late last year. I ordered these bulbs, along with his Autumn Colors, from him directly.

'Sulphur Phoenix', a really old historic double daffodil (from before 1820 I believe). This is another from my great grandmother's land. It has a wonderful fragrance.

'White Petticoat', another new one for the this year. It's a seedling of 'Diamond Ring', which I've grown and posted about here before, crossed with the white species Narcissus cantabricus. It has a wonderful melon-like fruity fragrance.

Here's 'White Petticoat' in its pot. It's a tiny daffodil. These daffodils, called bulbocodiums or hoop-petticoat daffodils, are quite different from other daffodils and don't interbreed with them easily.

That's about all for now. More blooms to come, though!