Some Late Winter Cheer!

At the school where I work, we've a staff tradition of planting daffodils during one of our late summer meetings.  In the spring, when we see them begin to bloom, we know that our work with the current year's class will soon be coming to an end and, like the daffodils, the children will have grown and blossomed.  The growth that a child experiences during his or her first few years of school seems as beautiful, miraculous, and rapid as the emergence and blooming of these happy flowers. You will notice that some of them are growing at the feet of rose canes.  It is my own tradition to plant  a rose bush in the spring for each retiring teacher.  Our flower beds represent our community of learners of all ages.

The Daffodil is a symbol of Wales whose patron saint is St. David.  St. David's day is a national holiday in Wales which falls on March 1, and many people tuck either a daffodil or a leek into their lapels in honor of the day.  The Leek is St. David's personal symbol and the association between the daffodil and leek is strengthened by  the fact that they have similar names in Welsh, Cenhinen (leek) and Cenhinen Pedr (daffodil, literally "Peter's leek").

The daffodils at school are just beginning to put out a few blooms.

 

Yes, they're bright and common but to my mind there is little as cheerful as these blaring yellow trumpeters on a wet and gray winter day!

 

Poem on Daffodils (and Other Flowers)

 

in time of daffodils (who know

the goal of living is to grow)

forgetting why, remember how

 

in time of lilacs who proclaim

the aim of waking is to dream,

remember so (forgetting seem)

 

in time of roses (who amaze

our now and here with paradise)

forgetting if, remember yes

 

in time of all sweet things beyond

whatever mind may comprehend,

remember seek (forgetting find)

 

and in a mystery to be

(when time from time shall set us free)

forgetting me, remember me.

 

e.e. cummings

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils. 

 

William Wordsworth

 

     

These Tête-à-Tête daffodils look sweet planted with  inky blue grape hyacinths in pots.

 

 

Many were quite fond of this combination of ornamental grass and daffodils in a beach-themed garden at the Northwest Flower and Garden Show.  This treatment looks truly beachy and in the context of the show was marvelous. 

 

I hope your day is full of bright yellow sunny thoughts, rainbows, hearts, and friggin unicorns.