Historic fields of gold
The first daffodils here were planted in 1895, and these golden fields today echo the stories of this historic region.
Weatherston’s daffodil dell, planted well over a hundred years ago.
During the gold rush, Weatherstons was a bustling goldfield town with shops, banks, hotels, a school, gambling dens, billiards parlours and a brewery.
In 1861, gold was discovered at Gabriel’s Gully in Central Otago and shortly after at nearby Weatherstons. Today, gold still shimmers at Weatherstons but it is on the hillside, not in the riverbeds. Every spring, millions of daffodils naturalised from thousands of bulbs planted over 100 years ago cover the slopes.
The Black Horse Brewery daffodils
During the gold rush, Weatherstons was a bustling goldfield town with shops, banks, hotels, a school, gambling dens, billiards parlours and a brewery. The brewery opened in 1866 and was purchased by miners
Ben Hart and James Simpson in 1884. Under their ownership, the Black Horse became Otago’s most successful provincial brewery.
Ben had been a prize-winning horticulturalist in Tasmania before moving to New Zealand in 1862. In 1895, he began planting narcissi bulbs around his home and the Black Horse premises with the help of brewery workers. The site is ideal for daffodils; natural springs provide water in winter and spring, it has good drainage and frosts, and the north-facing hillside provides the bulbs with a summer baking.
Fifty varieties of bulbs were sourced from several places, including the Netherlands, with prices as high as £100 per bulb. The daffodils, together with snowflakes and primroses, were planted mainly for naturalising.
In 1911, Ben’s son Henry calculated there were approximately a million bulbs planted on the hills and in the garden by him and his father, and by 1924 it was estimated that there were over 2 million bulbs around the brewery. The narcissi were planted over three fields totalling 10 hectares, with different varieties in each.
In the lower fields, it is still possible to see remains of the rows they were planted in.
The Weatherstons daffodils are closely related to wild daffodils, particularly the trumpets and the poets, and today there are also a lot of wild hybrids unique to the site.
Hybridisation
The Hart family were narcissi devotees. Ben, his sons Henry and Alfred and other members of the family grew, hybridised and showed daffodils in horticultural society
The Weathersons daffodils are closely related to wild daffodils, particularly the trumpets and the poets, and today there are also a lot of wild hybrids unique to the site.