The Way to Go?

At the recent Annual General Meeting of the Northern Group a discussion took place on ways to combat the serious decline in membership of specialist flower societies such as the Daffodil Society with the loss of so many shows in recent years.

One thought was to identify garden societies holding spring flower shows where although there may be a handful of classes for daffodils  or spring bulbs, there was great potential for including an expanded range of classes in a Daffodil Section.

Many Gardening Clubs/Societies are very active, with expanding membership, holding regular monthly meetings with speakers and often mounting Spring and Summer/Autumn shows. It was thought that if the Northern Group could assist with help with provision of staging and vases, new shows could be made available. This of course was what happened at Wrenthorpe when after the demise of Wrose a vacancy in the early daffodil show calendar arose, and was filled very successfully.

This weekend in our area there have been shows at Leeds Paxton Society (Saturday) and Wrenthorpe (Sunday) in Yorkshire and Tottington (Saturday) and Ramsbottom (Sunday) in Lancashire. All are Spring flower shows in which the daffodil content is only a part. Reports of these shows may be accessed by clicking on its name.

If you are aware of any other gardening societies where there is the potential for increasing (or introducing) the daffodil content then please let us know by commenting below.

One interesting feature of three of the shows mentioned above was that ‘Golden Joy’ was the Best Bloom in show. Not as is sometimes the case, the same flower in and out of the fridge doing the rounds, but three different flowers shown by three different exhibitors and selected by three different judges. A flower registered 41 years ago which has the grace and poise so often lacking in the large (Sumo wrestler) flowers that so many exhibitors prefer today.