Spring fever
There is a dizzying array of daffodil varieties. Which one is best for you and your garden? An expert grower in Gordonton has tips.
Not all the daffodils and bulbs nurtured here are available to home growers – some varieties are available only to commercial clients, yet others exist only as a handful of bulbs (the only ones of their kind in the world)…
Giventhe charming simplicity of the single, unassuming stand selling daffodils on the side of Gordonton Road, it is tempting to surmise that the flowers – there are cut blooms neatly and prettily presented in metal buckets as well as tidy potted plants handily sized to be carried away – come from a backyard garden behind the stand. And it is true that growers Ian and Marian Riddell’s house sits mere metres away from this welcoming sight, located some 20 minutes’ drive north of Hamilton city centre. But the daffs were not grown in their backyard garden. Well, not quite. Or at least “garden” is not the word that comes to mind as one takes in the place where over 1000 varieties of daffodils can be found. “On our best day, we’ve picked 2500 bunches of daffodils,” says Ian.
Ian is the owner and manager of Clandon Daffodils, and has spent over 25 years in the business, from preparing the soil and planting bulbs to harvesting flowers and selling them. The operation is spread over 21 acres, and leases a further five, and there are endless rows of daffodils to behold, with each variety in its own row.
Some rows have already been harvested this morning, so are presenting only their foliage minus the cheery spring topper; the rows which were not harvested this morning are breathtaking, with large white and yellow trumpet-shaped blooms waving merrily enough in the gusty bone-chilling winds to warm the heart; yet other rows are bare, their soil looking cold and lonely even as they wait patiently to nurse more bulbs.
The best pickers he hires, Ian explains, can pick up to 500 bunches of flowers a day, which are eventually distributed to wholesalers, supermarkets and florists around the country – much of Clandon’s daffs are auctioned at dawn at the United Flower Growers warehouse in Auckland.
August is their busiest time. “Right up to Daffodil Day,” he adds, and the cut flowers are kept in fresh water right up to the time they are sold.
Ian talks quickly and easily of the commercial process in terms of price and seasonality, supply and demand – this variety has the biggest flowerhead of all, he says, as we walk between the mounded rows, that variety has the purest white, or that one is worth more because they can be available in the depths of winter, gesturing broadly in another direction. I try hard to keep up, but to be honest, anyone who is not a keen-eyed expert daffodil breeder or grower would find it challenging pick out ‘Kiwi Sunset’ or ‘Early Orbit’ amidst these fields of gold. It is a too-dazzling sight to take in all at once.
Not all the daffodils and bulbs nurtured here are available to home growers – some varieties are available only to commercial clients, yet others exist only as a handful of bulbs (the only ones of their kind in the world) which have been lovingly bred and hybridised by Graham Phillips, once Ian’s boss, then business partner, and now a friend and mentor. “Graham imported a lot of them too, all the different varieties, back when it was easier and less expensive.”
Clandon Daffodils is spread over 21 acres, and leases a further five, and in season there are endless rows of daffodils to behold, with each variety in its own row.