Seven days of spring - Day three

Day three is about narcissus ‘grand soleil d'or’, also called the tazetta daffodil. These charming miniature daffodils and grow up to 45cm tall and blooms consist of between 10 and 20 sweet smelling flowers per plant.

The native area of these plants are not fully known, but some believe that they are from a Dutch origin and records of these plants date before 1770. There is a legend on the Isles of Scilly that a Dutch merchant gifted the lady of Star Castle narcissus bulbs, but she discarded them after thinking they were onions that tasted bad. Records show that on the Isles of Scilly, the sowing of these plants date back to the 1860s. During the 1950s around 200 million narcissus plants were grown on the Isles of Scilly, these were then traded all over the UK. The white variation of the flowers are known as the ‘Scilly white’, which is a great companion for the ‘grand soleil d’or’ which is pictured below.

A narcissus ‘grand soleil d'or’