Always amongst the earliest daffs to start the season are a line of very white paperwhites with an interesting origin .Tazetta maestro Bill Welch , Bill the bulb Baron , sent some selected paperwhite seed to John Hunter , in Nelson NZ .John sowed the seed and eventually flowered about 600 different seedlings .A few years on and John marked out and selected what he considered the best seedlings , from a line that had the usual expected variations in size , shape , stem length and strength and a little variation in flowering times . The common characteristic was that they were all very white – no hint of creams in the perianth or any colour in the cups .Cup shape did vary a little from straight tubes to flatter , flared and serrated styles .John then generously distributed the remainder to several other growers that he thought might find them interesting as possible early cutflowers .I recieved quite a few as did Diane and Peter Irwin .
After growing them on for several seasons , The Irwins made several selections that they thought were outstanding and after they had clumped up nicely , registered 3 under the name of the seed raiser , Bill Welch .They have almost finished flowering for this season but I picked a few as I think they are very attractive . Here are the Irwin selections .
BIGGAR , one of the earliest , good stem length , open slightly serrated cup, round , mid sized flowers .
CORMISTON, the biggest flowers , mid season , again a slightly open , lightly serrated cup .
PENTLAND FIRTH ,perhaps a little rounder , again good size flowers , thick stem .
All are very white and have good flower numbers per stem , which did vary quite a lot amongst the big group . A few more variations , – some very angular , a double flower ( the only one on the head ) and some very straight sided cups .All have the very strong and distinctive tazetta fragrance .
Hi All,
Nice to see some more flowers from New Zealand. I have seen an increasing number of bunches in the florists in the last few weeks. A number of bulbocodiums are flowering at the moment brightening up some cold mornings. These are mainly white and cream bred from B Romieuxii, I will post some photographs over the weekend.
The Northern daffodil Club will hold their first table show on Monday June 15th, it will be interesting to see what flowers will be available.
Robin Hill
Thanks, John, and this is a reminder to anyone, anywhere in the world, who wants FREE seeds of my highly diverse colorful Autumn Colors tazetta strain, please email me at