Daffodils beneath the telegraph wires

Hello m' sunnies! Please bring tea and sunglasses....

The dry stone hedgerows bob with happy yellow heads. The roadside fields are brazen. Sometimes a distant golden patch shimmers like a mirage, appears to move around and is impossible to locate. The flower picker trucks, with their 'pickers wanted' signs, hold you up your way to and from Rosudgeon carboot sale, grrrrr. 

We're talking daffodils.

 These particular rows are not for picking - oh no - these bulbs are busy multiplying. Please, let them concentrate...

 

Scamp's daffodil field, Falmouth, Cornwall

 

 

All the pictures on today's post were taken one glorious sunny Sunday morning (27th March): a trip to Scamp's 14 acre daffodil field on the outskirts of Falmouth. Many thanks to the super helpful Adrian  (Scamp Junior) for welcoming us, and the fab Mylor Garden Club for organising.

 

 

In Britain, we can apparently thank the Romans for bringing the daffodil over. (Monty Python: What have the Romans ever done for us?) The Romans didn't bother too much with this remote Cornish peninsula though. As long as the tin flowed, the beardy druids were left in peace to sip their honey mead.  

 

Who knows when the wild daffodil seed rode the 50-year storm wave, or the springy sun ruffled bulb, geared up with sweat bands, pole-vaulted over the Tamar River and made its home in the warm, wet micro climate of the Cornish Riviera? 

 

Narcissus poeticus praecox
 

 

William Trevellick was a humble potato farmer on the Isles of Scilly when he spotted a semi-wild narcissi in bloom one January in 1875 and thought 'hmmm - I'll pack some bunches off on the mainland train to London, those Landan town hipsters are bound to go crazy for these early cut flowers'.

 

By the early 1900s the daffodil 'gold rush' was on. Market farms sprang up by Mounts Bay (Penzance) still known today as 'the golden mile' and on the southern slopes of the Tamar Valley. It was on his uncle's farm (Dan du Plessis) in the Tamar Valley where the young Ron (now Scamp Senior), cut his teeth picking daffodils as a lad in the 1940s and 50s. 

 

 Narcissus 'Feock' - isn't she an absolute beaute!?

 

Above: Narcissus 'Boslowick', another local stunner

 

 

Above: Narcissus 'Capability Brown'
 

The breeder Percival Dacres Williams (1865 - 1935) lived in St Keverene by the Lizard and named many cultivars after Cornish villages and Celtic Saints. 

The horticulturist Alec Grey (1895 - 1986) worked on the Scilly Isles and later had a nursery at Treswithian (Camborne way) where he specialised in breeding miniature daffodils. It is quite funny to find out that he was at first unimpressed with his 'Tête-à-Tête' variety (registered in 1949)-  one of the biggest sellers of all time.

 

Plus let's not forget Cornwall's current day 'Daffodil Godfather', or should we say 'Goldfather'- Ron Scamp of Falmouth, who has bred many of his own varieties. Together with son Adrian, the Scamps have won countless Royal Horticulture Society gold medals. Surely they must have lost count by now!?

 

 Above: Narcissus tazetta

 

When Adrian was asked what his favourite daffodil was, he joked whichever one made him the most money! He did then reel off a long list, and this lovely one was on it - the historical variety 'Firebrand' (pre- dating 1897). It is Adrian's hope that the family continue to grow their historic collection, through correctly identifying those found in hedgerows, old gardens and churchyards, plus bulking up the number of their confirmed varieties.

Narcissus 'Firebrand'

Another historical variety captured on camera - 'Compressus' (pre-1719)

Narcissus 'Compressus'

Get your wellies farmer girls and boys! Some notes on the practicalities of the farm now ... The varieties are planted in rows, in batches, in alphabetical order - all clearly marked with wooden battens.  The daffodils are not deadheaded - this would take too long.

 

The filed is split into two zones - the bulbs in the upper part will be lifted this summer. Specialised machinery scoops them out of the ground and deposits them on top of the soil. Seasonal workers, in the form of local students, are then brought in to help collect the bulbs. They are taken to the barn, graded according to size and sterilized with hot water treatment. They are then bagged up for sale or replanted, depending on their plumpness / size.

 

Above: The edge of this year's bulb harvest  - in the distance 'orphans' can be seen in the field now planted with a cereal crop. These are strays that escaped last summer's extraction process.

Above: Lower end of field (Zone 2) - these will be left for another year to plump up.

All Scamp's bulbs are increased through natural multiplication in the ground. Adrian marveled at some of the Dutch growers that come over, take bulbs and very quickly increase stock through the methods of chipping or 'twin scaling'. Anyone who has ever driven through the flat farm lands of Holland can probably appreciate the vast scale of production involved here.

 

Below: Upper field (Zone 1), with more mature plants and bigger bulbs.

As part of the leased farmland rotation, next year's bulbs will be planted in land where potatoes are currently growing. Adrian explained it's not ideal to follow potatoes with daffodils due to the risk of Potato Cyst Nematodes (nematodes feed on roots and reduce plant vigour). However, luckily it is not something that has ever affected this area, plus there are regular PCN surveys made by outside contractors to monitor the soil and crop quality.

Some important lessons I took away from my visit

1. More daffodils will be required at Long Mizzle. Nothing eats them (they are toxic!), bar those annoying tiny slugs that may have a little nibble on the emerging petals. Ratty will leave them alone, unlike tulips that are quite a delicacy. Plus, unlike many tulips, they reliably come back year after year.
   
2. Daffodil 'blindness' (all foliage, no flowers) is more likely to be due to bulbs being planting too shallowly than too deeply. On reflection, the ground under my Trachycarpus Palm was not the best place to have planted some - too dry, stony and rooty to get the required depth!!!They will be moved to pastures new.
   
3. Whilst it is generally recommended to deadhead spent flower heads, to allow the energy to go back into the bulb, the wild ones are to be left alone. For example, I was foolish to deadhead my Narcissus bulbocodium (Hoop peticoats) - which spread via seed. 

Above: Scamp's stand at this year's Falmouth Spring Flower Show 2022 

(See related post here)

 

 I hope you enjoyed the daffodil field as much as I did. 

Please send gossip,

Lulu xXx

P.S. Please note, I am not sponsored in any way, but as a Scamp's customer of many years, I can genuinely recommend them for top quality bulbs, advise and all round super service -

R & A Scamp - Quality Daffodils

 

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