Human Flower Project
Narcissus-ism
Wet winters, dry summers and good soils of the American Midwest translate each spring into daffodils.
Larry Force’s ‘American Dream’
Gold Ribbon Winner
American Daffodil Society, 2005
Photo: Tom Stettner
Daffodil exhibitions cropped up across Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and Missouri this April, shows of both the roadside and the indoor, ribbon-granting kind. Recent competitive gatherings have taken place in both Louisville and Cincinnati (these were people-contests since flowers, so far as we know, lack ambition). The American Daffodil Society held its national convention in St. Louis, where, Post-Dispatch reporter Becky Homan wrote, “250 national and international experts were expected.”
Beth Holbrooke of the St. Louis daffodil club informs us by e-mail: “58 entrants displayed 750 exhibits that totalled at least 1775 blooms. We had entrants from around the country and Northern Ireland, with attendees from New Zealand, Australia, Northern Ireland, The Netherlands.”
According to event chairman Jason Delaney, of the Missouri Botanical Garden, “The competition is fierce…not to prove which are the better garden cultivars but which is the most aesthetically pleasing - and perfect - daffodil in a cut-flower show. There’s a whole day of people grooming these flowers, straightening their petals and cleaning them.”
Tom Stettner of the ADS has a terrific photo-site of winning blooms from this event and many others. Larry Force’s golden and Gold-ribbon-winning American Dream, Kathy Welsh’s collection of 12 miniatures, all pose before a black drape – the better to show off their shapes and colors.
Stettner writes that for him the convention is more reunion then competition: He was especially happy to see “those who haven’t been with us for a few years… a hybridizer from Australia and a couple from New Zealand. The show was wonderful, as expected.”
At the Midwest Regional Daffodil Show, held the prior weekend in Louisville, Kentucky, I had the pleasure to meet Helen Trueblood, an 87 year old daffodil grower from Scottsburg, Indiana. Mrs. Trueblood, who was raised on a dairy farm, says daffodils originated in the mountains of Italy and Spain. They “moved through England” and were brought by pioneer settlers in Southern Indiana. When years ago, her grandfather Richey plowed up “two big strips” to plant fescue for his calves, he managed to spread out an old line of daffodil bulbs so successfully they called his farm Easter Hill.
Helen Trueblood, at the Midwest Regional Daffodil Show
April 2, 2005, Louisville, Kentucky
Photo: Carolyn Courtney
The Kentucky Daffodil society presents the Helen Trueblood Green Rosette Award for “the best bloom or collection” of “intermediates” (one of a zillion classes of narcissus, or daffodil). Mrs. Trueblood says her personal favorite is the pseudo-narcissus, with its “twisty petals.”
The American Daffodil Society provides friendly instructions about how to grow daffodils, with essays from narcissus-ists from New England to New Mexico. Around Louisville, Hilda Dunaway says, you plant bulbs in the fall “when the dogwood foliage turns red.” Or just plow an old fenceline.