I'm Going Daffy!

So, it's been more than two weeks since my last post, but it's been a busy time. Besides work at the Polly Hill Arboretum, I've finished the invasive species guide for N.C. State University and I'm continuing my work on the N.C. Master Gardner's Manual. Never a dull moment! But, as a treat, here's a two-for-one deal: two slideshows for one post!

(Note: You will have to go to the actual blog to see the photo slideshows. Just click the title at the top and it will take you there. This is also my first post with the new email list, so please feel free to respond to the email with feedback!)

Every time I would look up at the El Field I would think to pinch myself
because I was sitting in the middle of a field of daffodils and they were paying me.

The second week started with more exploring of Martha's Vineyard with Sandy, Tom's wife, and Cercis, their dog (yep, as in the plant genus) at Quansoo Beach, before it went private. (Land rights around here are weird.) Anyway, the work week was spent getting more familiar with the plants and people. The horticulture staff and I hauled a huge Cryptomeria japonica, Japanese Cedar, log (check out the photo!) out of the garden, and the Daffodil Project (or as I've now come to know it: the Daffy Project) really started to take off.


For the latter, I had to put on my fedora and start sleuthing around Polly Hill's original accession cards and garden notebooks (After just a little while I was jealous of her meticulous notetaking skills!) to find leads to which Narcissus cultivars might be planted on the grounds, because I quickly discovered there were tens more cultivars in the garden than were in the database! It definitely made me ask Tom who's idea it was to start the project by the end of week three. After that I had to use DaffSeek, the American Daffodil Society's daffodil database, and The Plant List, a working list of all recognized plant species in the world, to verify the cultivars and species I found. What I discovered were a mind-boggling amount of daffodil cultivars and tons of taxonomic shifts in the genus Narcissus.

Narcissus rupicola subsp. rupicola, the last surviving species Narcissus that I've found on the grounds. There's a good chance there are two subspecies in the clump these came from. These little guys, barely as big as a quarter, look like they're dancing.

Most of week three was the bitterest cold my body has ever seen for spring in my entire life. I was barely in the 50 for a couple of days and the air was wet and chilled you to the bone. My winter coat didn't seem thick enough to protect me from the biting wind and rain. There was even fog in the afternoon one day like none I've ever seen in my life! Four in the afternoon looked like 6:30 p.m.! Devon and I had a plan though: check out Chilmark Chocolates after work. Success.



There was hope yet by the end of the week though. As soon as the sun came out, it started to warm up, which used here is a very loose term. It broke the upper 50s. But warmer, nonetheless, and I took it. The plants did too. Hints of spring, just hints, started to reveal themselves and made the cold worth the wait.

Now, it is just a matter of time until Martha's Vineyard looks like North Carolina did before I left in early April!

Prunus 'Accolade', accessioned in 1980. Whoa, what a show! It was worth the wait just to see.
There is a lady in the bottom right of the tree for scale.