Daffodils in December? Naughty Narcissus
by matt @ 1:27 pm. Blogged under Living and Dying, Thinking
I was checking out my new miniature vegetable garden this week (which is a complete failure despite my best efforts with organic compost) - to my amazement, all the Daffodils have sprouted in the borders (and lawn) with stems a good three to five inches high. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they were flowering in January - which surely can’t be a good thing as there’ll be very little chance of pollenation! I had a look online to see if my garden was unique, I discovered it’s a UK wide phenomenon (and that Daffodils are deadly).
Daffodils typically flower between March and May - hence they’re usually a Mother’s Day feature (or at least they were when I was at nursery school). They’re known for their hardy qualities, however, in Wales the Daffodils flowered a fortnight ago. This article raises all the issues that sprang into my head when I first saw my Daffs - will a severe frost kill them in January? How will they get pollenated? Is this a sign of climate change? Will any other flowers be fooled into thinking it’s Spring already?… Tune into the next exicting episode of Dangermouse…
During my research (which lead me to the above article) I discovered that Daffodils are poisonous. I don’t ever remember anybody telling me this as a child - we’re all lucky I didn’t try and eat them. Apparently the flowers and bulbs are deadly; rabbits and small animals frequently fall prey to them. Indeed throughout history Daffodils have been used to make medicines for treatments of baldness, epilepsy and even as aphrodisiacs (you can’t beat a bit of poison to get the heart racing!).
Technorati Tags: daffodils, narcissus, climate change, flowering
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December 22nd, 2006 at 9:11 am
yes, the daffodil is the traditional harbinger of spring but it is appearing earlier and earlier now. Even some trees are in bud due to the unusually high temperatures we have been experiencing. 2006 promises to be the warmest year ever recorded.
Stop breathing is what I say.
January 11th, 2007 at 8:23 pm
mmmmm, my geraniums are still blooming and last summer’s lobelia still giving it a go. the daffodils are well up. the gazanias getting ready, and until today’s big winds a lot of the trees around here still had last year’s leaves on.