Daffodil Gardens

After I spent an exhausting morning lugging camera equipment around and crawling around on the ground taking pictures of wildflowers with my camera club, Eric and I went with a friend to see Joe Hamm's daffodil gardens this past Saturday afternoon. 

Joe's daffodil gardens

Joe Hamm is a daffodil grower in Hopewell Township, Washington County.  He is a member of the American Daffodil Society and grows over 1,500 varieties of daffodils on his farm.  Also at Joe's place this Saturday was an American Daffodil Society show and flower arrangements by a local garden club. The gardens are free and open to the public during the month of April.  

From the Miniatures category

For me, the afternoon in the daffodil garden meant more crawling around on my knees taking photos.  Fortunately, the weather was cool and cloudy, so I didn't have to deal with heat and sun.  

One of the volunteers explained to us that daffodil bloom times are divided into 6 overlapping periods.  Because it was late April by the time we got to the gardens, we saw the late blooming daffodils.  Many of the varieties were past their prime or were already done blooming.

I regret that we came so late in the display and that we didn't take more notes of variety names.  If we go again another year, I would like to go earlier and I would like to plan to pay more attention to variety names.  As it was, Eric and I got a good idea of what we like to see in a daffodil and what we want to look for when we buy bulbs for our own yard.