Breeder News

Another spring and another display of the annual show of daffodills at Brodie Castle outside Nairn. The grounds surrounding the castle are home to a woodland walk that is especially striking when the daffodils are in bloom. He was the Royal Scots Guard whose love of spring flowers has left a legacy that Scotland , and the rest of the world, still enjoys today. Major Ian Brodie, 24th laird of Brodie and clan chieftain, began tinkering with daffodils in 1899 at his ancestral home in Morayshire, at first cross-breeding from around 49 different bulbs. Almost immediately his experimentation had to be put on hold after joining the Lovat Scouts in 1900 to fight in the second Boer War. In 1902, after returning home wounded, and decorated with a Distinguished Service Order, he took up where he left off and that year made 375 crosses, bearing 501 seedlings. He become one of the world’s most successful daffodil breeders raising tens of thousands of daffodils in his walled garden at at time when the now ubiquitous spring blooms were not as popular. Now more than 120 years later, the fruits of Major Brodie’s work can be enjoyed every year at the Brodie Daffodil Festival, held between March 22 and April 13. Today’s daffodils are cultivated under the careful watch of Brodie Castle’s head gardener Ed Walling. At just 24, Walling oversees all of the groundwork and maintenance at the 16th-century castle which was taken over by the National Trust for Scotland (NTS) in 1980. During his first year working on the 278-acre estate, Walling watched and waited, quietly learning the ropes and the natural rhythms of the house and gardens. He said: “I waited to see what came up, see what grew and see what happened.” One of Brodie Castle’s greatest assets is its daffodil collection, one of only five in the UK. It draws people to the estate and continues to flourish with every year. Walling said: “The national daffodil collection is not just Brodie’s collection, it’s Scotland’s collection and it’s quite rare. Out of nearly 500 Brodie daffodils we […]

Source: www.heraldscotland.com