Daffs are made for English soil and its often volatile spring weather. I was a tulip addict when I started gardening, the pages of my flower yard book and the pottery gardener are testimony to this. And I have some pots with them in and they ripening up now green in the bud, like dragons eggs.

Tulips are wonderous but I don’t feel they are sustainable. That odd word which we chuck about to this and that and are then happy to ignore when it suits or inconveniences us. Tulips frankly are in general, fairly rubbish in terms of their pot perennial abilities. In pots, they sweat and this causes the original fat, fresh bulbs that you plant to make lots of baby bulbs that then will take 3 years often to flower well. Every garden you visit in the spring that claims to have shows of tulips in pots relies quite heavily on fresh tulip bulbs to planted each autumn and winter.

Tulips do far better in the ground especially with some grit given to the base of each bulb to help with soil lightness. Some varieties will appear well year after year but to be honest those that come back and don’t in my experience vary hugely it seems to be a lottery although ‘Orange Marmalade’ which is a new favourite wonder of a big croquet mallet sized creation blushed with green against you guessed it orange has come back well for the past 3 years since being planted in the ground. But tulips also increasingly suffer from virus and they are adored by the tree rats who are grey squirrels pots then require protection all a faff and should the spring be windy and wet their flowers often don’t last a week if left uncut so I am a little tulip’d out.

I chose to make myself opt for the much cheaper option of various daffs or narcissi if you want to call them that last autumn, being bitter tasting the squirrels won’t eat them. And looking out at the lovely river of golds, lemons and oranges now I am so glad I did. I planted a lot of daffs too in a neighbours raised bed that they have allowed me to adopt and so I have lots cut in the house along with some pots planted with them as living arrangement and their wonderous scent is so beautiful. The nice thing is that daff bulbs differ to tulips in that they usually come back with gusto each spring and so their investment makes more sense to me, they have a good vase life, people worry about the slimy sap but it leaks out of the stem ends after a few hours so you can let them leak it out in a glass before arranging them with other sprigs.

Perhaps my favourite one is ‘Edinburgh’ which has such a beautiful taffeta centre of the most delicate antiqued coral.

In the pots at large are Narcissus 'Orangery', Narcissus 'Kimmeridge', Narcissus 'Fortissimo'

Others from my lists include - Narcissus 'June Allyson' and Narcissus High Society

Then a few doubles which are no good really for bees due to their profuse petals but they are such characters especially as cut flowers all very daft, heavy and clown like full of expression, Alice in Wonderland talking flowers who tease Alice. Narcissus 'Flower Drift' has proven to be more elegant than ‘Replete’ but both are quite Queen mother hat, ladies day races fabulous. Bridal Crown and Winston Churchill have fantastic scent. Then very late to the party will be the delicate pheasants eye.

As the pots of them go over I’ll empty them from their terracotta vessels and dob them through the gardens flower beds which will be worth the effort knowing they’ll flower again next year. An orchard full of mixed daffodil carpets within long grass is the most beautiful thing. I love that film, The Land Girls a 1998 film directed by David Leland. It ends with them all laughing a dancing within such a wonderous backdrop with a beautiful soundtrack by Brian Lock.

It has been dry here for the past 3 weeks and beautiful sunshine but so much for April showers I have a feeling a monsoon is to come, I hope anyway for a day or so the fields need it. The problem is with climate change we don’t get those lovely drip, drip little April showers, the pots are very thirsty with all the leaves and huge energy needed to develop flower buds. The bird bath is in constant use too by the Robins and Blue Tits, I hope they are all finding caterpillars and are coping.