A host of mostly golden daffodils

Daffodils are not generally the merry harbingers of the first week of bloody May, but here they are at last, and we’re pleased to see them. The countryside is full of them. One thing which has struck us is that we do seem to have  an extraordinary variety – not just our favourite green and yellow archaic stripey mutants. If you go round the garden picking daffodils, once you  get over the general impression of a sea of yellow and start focusing on details, you observe there are at least  twenty varieties, and maybe quite a few more if you really went round with a notebook and ticked them off. I have personally planted some of the small size jonquils,  ex- pots in the house, ‘Cheerfulness’, also ex- pots in the house, the creamy-white scented narcissus ‘Thalia’, which remains my favourite of the whole lot, and Poet’s Narcissus. That’s all, four varieties. I’m inclined to think that most people, like me,  have fairly definite views on daffodils, if they care about them at all. The gay proliferation of doubles, singles, lemon-yellow,white, cream, orange, and everything in between therefore suggests that we have fallen heir to someone’s obsession, some considerable distance back in the day.