THE 1953 DAFFODIL SEASON 
Perhaps reports on the weather may appear 
irrelevant in a series of seasonal notes pertaining 
to Daffodil performance, but it is by reviewing 
the reaction to various kinds of weather that we 
are informed as to the likes and tolerances of the 
flowers in question, for the climatic conditions 
contribute greatly to the success or failure of Daf- 
fodils or any other flowers. It has been fre- 
quently, and doubtless rightly, stated that there 
is never a normal season; but deviations from a 
projected average lend interest, if not always 
satisfaction, to one’s observations; and we are 
given a better idea as to what we may expect in 
the performance of the various kinds through 
study of their ability to take in stride the vicissi- 
tudes of weather. Even so, we can never accu- 
rately anticpate their reactions due to the many 
contributing factors, and faulty interpretation on 
our part. Temperature, moisture, nutrients avail- 
able, the condition of the bulb at planting time 
including its past season’s growth, storage condi- 
tions, etc., and various other circumstances have 
a bearing on the blooms produced. 
As a prelude to the past season, the autumn of 
1952 proved to be one of the driest for many 
years; the soil being so devoid of moisture when 
planting in October that root growth a month to 
six weeks later was very meager or nonexistent. 
and we had some misgivings as to whether there 
would be good blooms, and if bulbs would make 
normal growth; but beginning in December there 
was more than adequate moisture, with some ten 
inches of rainfall during the month, followed by 
fourteen and one-half inches in January, with an 
average temperature in January of 48.5 degrees 
compared with the usual average of 39.5 degrees. 
The coldest days of the season came before win- 
ter officially opened, with temperatures dropping 
to 20 degrees in the latter part of November. In 
Portland, there were only two days with freezing 
temperatures during all of 1953, the minimum 
being 31 degrees on March Ist. Here, twenty miles 
south, we had several more days of frost and with 
somewhat lower minimums, but still very mild. 
Portland’s precipitation for the year was 53.84 
inches compared with a normal of 39.91 inches. 
Obviously part of this annual weather picture ap- 
plies to the 1954 Daffodil growing season. 
Due to the mild weather, Polyanthus Primroses 
bloomed nearly all winter but as there was little 
sunshine or really warm weather, they did not 
reach their peak until late March and early April. 
Many of the plants from seed sown less than a 
year before grew overly large. Never before had 
we had as many fine blooms. Daffodils were a 
bit later blooming than in 1952, due in part per- 
haps to getting a late start and to the nearly 
constant cloudy weather. A large part of the early 
blooming species are grown in pots and boxes so 
that they may be brought under cover before they 
bloom to prevent their being spoiled by inclement 
weather and slugs, and to permit their being pol- 
linated to better advantage. As reported in our 
last year’s notes, the species hybrid Narcissus 
bulbocodium x Nylon, a very pretty little white 
hoop petticoat similar to N.b. foliosus, opened the 
season early in January. As this is written, Janu- 
ary 23rd, 1954, this same little Daffodil has been 
in bloom nearly two months. Narcissus asturiensis 
and N. bulbocodium Romieuxii followed shortly. 
It is doubtful if either of these would be too satis- 
factory for the garden because of their earliness. 
Both are gems, the former a tiny exquisitely 
formed little trumpet, and the other a very flar- 
ing, fluted sulphur lemon hoop petticoat which 
appears to be a better grower than N.b. citrinus. 
The delightful little N. cyclamineus follows these, 
and like them, seems best grown in pots. Unfortu- 
nately, none of these are plentiful as yet, virtually 
all the bulbs offered in the trade being wild col- 
lected bulbs dug at blooming time or shortly 
after, and are devitalized to the point where many 
succumb before planting time, and few of those 
that survive give more than inferior blooms at 
best. 
The outdoor blooming season started early in 
February with a little bicolor miniature named 
BAMBI, with a MAGNIFICENCE x N. cyclamineus 
seedling mentioned in previous notes following 
closely on its heels. Then there were N. minor, 
N. nanus, and N. pumilus, a trio of dainty little 
trumpet species, and N. pumilus plenus, a little 
double, very tight and full, which has been de- 
scribed as resembling a dandelion. It usually has 
numbers of green petals and is odd rather than 
pretty. The perky little MITE is a saucy but very 
pretty little fellow and has an unusual habit of 
sending up secondary buds which open perhaps 
two weeks after the first ones. This trait is shared 
somewhat with another little cyclamineus hybrid, 
BERYL. For some reason FEBRUARY GOLD 
lagged behind and did not open until after the 
first of March, following by some days MARCH 
SUNSHINE, thus reversing their blooming order! 
That with the longest season of all was HIA- 
WASSE whose first blooms appeared about the 
middle of February and others continued until 
about the first of May. Individual blossoms did 
not last so long but some bulbs flowered much 
sooner than others. 
As usual we had some lovely blooms of CON- 
TENT from potted bulbs. Also, from TRUTH, 
GREEN ISLAND, and a few others including 
MiTYLENE which we used for breeding both 
ways and were surprised to get a quantity of 
seed from bulbs grown in pots. These will be 
passed by to consider more of the little Daffo- 
dils, some of which we hope to make available 
in American grown bulbs in the near future. 
APRIL TEARS is surely one of the loveliest of 
all, possessing the grace of both its parents, jon- 
quil and triandrus. Two of its close relatives, but 
apparently not quite as vigorous growers, are 
HAWERA and PEASE BLOSSOM. Among the 
most unusual triandrus hybrids is ROSEDOWN. 
the only one of our acquaintance having an or- 
ange tinted crown. It is quite tall and usually 
bears one blossom on each stem. DAWN is an 
older one, nearly lost to cultivation, but making 
a comeback, it having most unique flat crowns of 
yellow with very informal, strongly reflexing peri- 
anths, there being usually two or three blooms on 
a stem. Perhaps the nearest like it is the late 
Dr. Powell’s variety, OCONEE. 
FAIRY DREAM W— Page 7 
There are several dwarf jonquil hybrids of 
which BEBOP, BOBBYSOXER, SUNDISC and LA- 
BELLE are very interesting. Though not a dwarf. 
the rather small but tall growing CHERIE, a pink 
tinted jonquil, is a lovely flower worthy of con- 
sideration here. Last spring from a cross of ST. 
MARY x N. jonquilla simplex we had bloom, the 
whitest and about the smoothest flowers that we 
have seen in this class, as well as several of the 
most clean cut lemon yellows. We are eagerly 
anticipating the flowering this year of a good 
sized series from WiLD ROSE x N. jonquilla sim- 
plex. Before passing on to the big flowers again, 
mention should be made of that most enchanting, 
tiny, intensely fragrant jonquil, N. juncifolius, 
which does not seem to be very long lived here 
but comes readily from seed which bloom the 
third season. The slightly larger, pure white 
N. watieri, is equally beautiful and may prove 
more amenable to cultivation. 
In the field we can depend on MALVERN GOLD 
to be one of the first big flowers to bloom, and 
since it has better form than most of the extra 
early yellow trumpets, it is a favorite here. From 
it we obtained CIBOLA, which is larger, more 
striking, and perhaps a better all around flower. 
It pleased us more last year than perhaps any 
other of our introductions. Blooming at about the 
same time is SACAJAWEA (named for the Indian 
bird woman who led the Lewis and Clark expedi- 
tion down the Columbia River; pronounced Sac’- 
a-ja-we’a) which is not a flower of exhibition 
form, but is striking in color and among the 
very first of the large flowers showing any 
oranze or red coloring to open. Nearly as early 
is MIRTH, a large bicolor trumpet. Two other 
earlies of quality are ROUGE, buff toned yellow 
perianth and brick red cup; and BRUNSWICK, 
tall white with pale lemon crown, an excellent 
one for cutting. 
Since there are many duties demanding one’s 
attention during the blooming period, there seems 
never to be sufficient time to jot down notes on 
the flowers as they bloom, and it is necessary 
to rely on memory, very deficient at best, to re- 
port the highlights of the season. More and more 
time is taken by the seedlings each year, and 
many of the older varieties get scant attention if 
any at all, but there are some so striking, so 
distinctive, or so outstandingly superior that we 
always come back to them every year, and in 
this category might be named POLINDRA, BO- 
DILLY, GALWAY, GREEN ISLAND, CHINESE 
WHITE, LIMERICK, FERMOY, PENVOSE, MABEL 
TAYLOR, INTERIM, CHUNGKING, DIOLITE, 
DUNKELD, COVERACK PERFECTION, ZERO, 
LUDLOW, TRUTH, COOLIN, KANCHENJUNGA, 
RUBRA, and CUSHENDALL, to mention only a 
few that come immediately to mind. There are, 
of course, many others. 
It would be futile to attempt to enumerate 
more than a few of the interesting flowers, but 
to begin, we shall consider some of the trumpet 
varieties. For smoothness, color, and broad peri- 
anth, there is perhaps nothing that we grow that 
excels KINGSCOURT. MILANION opens out more 
flat and has a beautifully rolled and crimped 
trumpet. Neither may be so striking in the gar- 
den as the giant DIOTIMA which is not of show 
caliber, nor are any of these as striking as PAUL 
BUNYAN, an excellent garden flower because of 
its mammoth size. There are few that can top 
CAMBERWELL KING in quality when it is at its 
peak, but it is rather temperamental. For large 
size, good growing habits, and good form we like 
HALLMARK and MORTLAKE. From a series of 
seedlings from Kingscourt x Galway, there were 
four or five excellent flowers, but perhaps the 
finest yellow trumpet that we have yet seen came 
from Camberwell King x Galway. a cross which 
had previously given us several good things, one 
of which was the best we had grown up to 1953. 
A tall growing, extremely broad petaled flower 
from Camberwell King x Mortlake has been suf- 
ficiently distinctive that it should merit intro- 
duction. For several years we have reported on 
seedlings of Content, of which there were num- 
bers of exceptional flowers, one of the finest 
being about the size of MOONSTRUCK but with 
much different form, and with a luminescence 
previously unmatched in a flower of this size. 
Tentatively called LUNA MOTH, it is a large 
rounded flower with flat overlapping perianth 
and rather long trumpet, the flower being of 
clean glistening sulphur-lemon throughout. There 
are at least a dozen others of very good quality 
from the same cross, KING OF THE NORTH be- 
ing the seed parent. Three or four of the most 
intriguing of the lot are reverse bicolors equal 
or superior to anything previously seen in this 
class. Using HUNTER’S MOON as a seed parent 
we obtained one with exceptional contrast, the 
perianth being clear lemon and the trumpet is 
almost pure white when developed. We anticipate 
striking things from these mated with the best 
Dutch sulphur colored flowers such as GRAPE- 
FRUIT, MOONRISE, and MULATTO. Three or 
four of the most distinctive of this lot should be 
ready for introduction in 1955. 
Greater advances have been made in white 
trumpets in the past 25 years than in pure 
yellows ,thanks to the efforts of the great Irish 
breeders, although here too, there is still room 
for better things. COOLIN and CANTATRICE are 
two of our favorites, although BROUGHSHANE 
and KANCHENJUNGA are more striking. We 
cannot yet evaluate properly such varieties as 
WHITE MONARCH, HINDUSTAN, and WHITE 
PROSPECT inasmuch as they have bloomed here 
only one season. Two white seedlings grown here 
for several years appear equal to these although 
the parentage might indicate inferior quality. One 
is from Daisy Schaffer x Broughshane, and an- 
other from Kanchenjunga x Ada Finch. A series 
from Kanchenjunga x Zero, coming into bloom in 
1952, showed exceptional uniformity in high qual- 
ity, and after lining out the best of these, from 
the remaining bulbs blooming in 1953 there were 
so many large, short necked flowers of exhibition 
caliber, that making further selections was diffi- 
cult indeed. Mr. Frank Reinelt visited us when 
these were at their peak and was quite impressed. 
There was sufficient variation in form to war- 
rant growing many of them again. As for bicolor 
trumpets, there is little to add to our comments 
of last year, 
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