After the gold rush
Cotehele’s daffodils are an inspiration, says Toby, as he salutes the work behind these remarkable fields of gold
WHILE filming for BBC Gardeners’ World at Cotehele in Cornwall, one of my favourite National Trust haunts, I picked up a fantastic tip for bulking up daffodils.
Cotehele’s gardens are home to daffs by the tens of thousands, including many heritage varieties saved from extinction from the surrounding Tamar Valley.
Before flowers were imported by air-freight all year round, early or out-ofseason daffodils came from Cornwall, where they flower weeks – even months – before they do in London, Birmingham and beyond.
At its peak, the daffodil industry employed 10,000 workers in the Tamar Valley alone. But this wasn’t to last, as during the Second World War the daffodil fields were requisitioned for edible crops. While some of the bulbs were ploughed in, many were bunged onto the headlands, from where they spread along the hedgerows – and where they stayed until their historical value was recognised and they were saved by the National Trust.
Cotehele has hundreds of these ‘antique’ varieties rescued from the surrounding landscape, including the lovely double ‘Butter and Eggs’ from 1777, which has petals the colour of cake mix before flour is folded in.
The earliest-to-bloom varieties flower before Christmas, but months later the show continues – thanks to the short-trumpeted April and Mayperforming pheasant-eye varieties such as N. ‘Actaea’ (1919) and heirloom N. poeticus var. recurvus from 1831.
These bright white and scented daffs are among my favourites, as they shine out above the spring scrum of cranesbill and aquilegia leaves, and their fragrance is so powerful that it fills the air along paths and patios.
Head gardener Dave Bouch is responsible for increasing their numbers, which he does using a method that goes against conventional care. Rather than wait for the leaves to die down, Dave digs up and divides crowded clumps when they’re still in bloom. This allows him to keep track of where, and crucially what, the different varieties are (see the panel below).
It might fly in the face of what it says in the books, but proof that this technique works is in the pudding – or rather, in the meadows, borders and banks of Cotehele. I’m certainly going to give it a go on mine…
“Many varieties have been saved from extinction”