D is for DAFFODIL

I know the names of very few flowers, which in itself gives some insight into my love of gardening but at the same time neither explains my love of colour nor my liking for the flowers that I can call by their correct titles. Like most lads living in the country, dandelions and daisies were never far away and sometimes far too close and it may seem a strange thing but I never ever quite captured the exact moment when the yellow florets of a dandelion head became grey, feathery parachutes, ready to carry their cargo into the next field and beyond. How fortunate too for the dandelion that most kids loved nothing better than blowing the heads off the stalk and thereby helping the plant complete the job that should have been solely reliant on a gust of wind. Anyway, regardless of whether they got human help or not, the next year the dandelions had set up home in the front garden and in the ditches and fields close by. I suppose as that great maestro Dylan once said 'the answer is blowin' in the wind.'

And they gave good company to the daisies that had seemed to have a permanent residency on our front lawn for most of my childhood. So bad did they become at one stage that I remember mum and dad actually spending a couple of days digging each one up, until the lawn was a mass of tiny circles of exposed soil, much more unsightly than their former residents. It did work, at least for a year or two, but back they came with a vengeance and I think eventually some sort of non-verbal agreement must have been reached with the king of the daisies for the spade was never taken out again.

We also had some lovely red and pink roses in a bed near the top of the garden, which had been planted before I was born and although their blossom was beautiful, their thorns were painful and their rambling nature often made mowing the grass difficult. Behind them and all along the front hedge were clusters of Orange lillies that seemed to come into bloom at just around the right time of year during the marching season and further down the garden stood a few red poppies, erect and posturing towards the road beyond the hedge. After that, I begin to struggle, though I do remember a couple of purple pokers and a rambling mass of nasturtiums that dominated the hedge next to the field and which dad cut back religiously most autumns. Years later he planted some in a hedge below the dwelling house and before long they had taken complete control there too, a testament to their resilience and growth.

Out in the fields we had another plant though generally it was much less welcome than even dandelions or daisies. We knew it as Ragweed though it is probably more commonly called Ragwort and it bore beautiful yellow flowers in several clumps every summer. Unfortunately, despite its beauty, therein lay a deadly poison, which if ingested in any quantities, especially after being cut from its root, could cause illness and even death in cattle and especially horses. But it was just so hard to control and seemed to spread at will from one field to another. Many times I remember fields in the area with patches completely covered in a yellow mass of the weed and the powers that be were often quick to instruct its removal or face some sort of penalty.

Yes we had plenty of natural colour in our lives and we always had daffodils. Dad saw to that. By early spring the evidence of his bulb planting began to appear at different points around the garden and on the roadside. And while he was still in good health, he spent a day or two, with a small garden trowel, hiding bulbs beneath the grass verges at the entries to our own house. Every year since, just about this time, small shoots begin to appear above the surface heralding the closeness of spring and reminding me of my dad's thoughtfulness and legacy and my Father's goodness and ever presence. Daffodils remind me of William Wordsworth, St David of Wales, our local Cancer charity, Easter and a minister who once ate a daffodil during a children's sermon to show us God's love, though I can't quite remember how he arrived at the punch line. Just this week, I've noticed the first three or four stalks rising above the grass again and I remember how dad always taught me never to cut the old daffodils too early until they had stored up enough food for the new growth to spring forth. And as I continue to feed on God's Word, I wait for the day when He says that I am ready for the new challenge that He sets before me. There's nothing more patient than a daffodil but it's always ready at exactly the right time. May we all learn digest its message.