The 2022 NCDS Daffodil Show at Alden Lane Nursery in Livermore (Saturday, March 5, and Sunday, March 6) was an unqualified success. Jacquie Williams-Courtright (Alden Lane Nursery owner) assured a flow of visitors with plentiful advertising of the event. The weather was most helpful too: cloudy with a few raindrops the days before to promote good blooms, and a sunny but not hot weekend to encourage folks to visit. We had notable daffodil growers from afar: Janet Hickman (next American Daffodil Society President) from Lynchburg, Virginia; and Jason Delaney (PHS Daffodils) from St Louis, Missouri. From a day’s drive away: Susan and Ron Duncan from Reno, Nevada; and Harold Koopowitz (leading Miniature authority) and Steve Hampson from Santa Ana, California. From a shorter drive: Jamie and Marc Colliard (Bulb Baron Daffodils) from Carmel, California. Not to be overlooked: David and Sherrie Van Vliet, and Rosemary Scholz from Escalon, California. Contributors Nancy Tackett and Ben Blake are from Martinez, California. Local expert Melissa Reading is from Livermore.
Janet Hickman flew cross-country to Oakland, bringing the few stems open at her home, and gathered stems from her granddaughters Karen and Julia, in Oakland (who won 3 first-places in the Youth Section). David and Sherrie Van Vliet collected 32 marvelous stems of ‘Tete-a-Tete’ (which had survived the recent snowfall at their 4000’ mountain property) and entered them in a lovely vase!
The Daffodil Show was extra-early for a normal daffodil season. It was set to feature the Miniature daffodils of Harold Koopowitz. His are extraordinary seedlings; hybrids between Fall (species) and Spring (Standard) cultivars, which bloom from January through February. To assure the room would be filled with Standards as well, I brought blooms from the February flowering seedlings I grow in my hybridizing program. As it turned out, these were hardly needed! Steve Hampson exhibited many excellent blooms that dominated the Show’s awards for Standards. Jamie and Marc Colliard brought many of their blooms (inherited from the late Tazetta Master Bill Welch) which filled the tazetta exhibits. Kirby Fong, the Show Chairman, added several outstanding vases of three cultivars. Nancy Tackett added several exhibits (one of which was the all-green cultivar ‘Mesa Verde’). Melissa Reading benched several fine three-stem entries. Others brought many exhibits that filled the tables with numerous Historic daffodil cultivars.
The Daffodil Show contained 782 stems from 319 exhibits. There were 19 exhibitors. There were 525 Standard (full size) stems and 256 Miniature stems. There were 8 pots of growing daffodils.