Narcissi or not?

It's daffodil season and I am starting to wonder whether I've missed a trick in ignoring them... I am not keen on the bright yellow ones and so in my bulb-planting flurry last autumn I decided I wasn't going to plant any. But this week I have changed my mind and I am now putting together a list of narcissi I've fallen in love with. It started off with a Gardens Illustrated article about Thierry Dronet's garden at Berchigranges in the Vosges (France), where the narcissi were anything but stridently supermarket-yellow. I particularly fell for 'Edinburgh', 'Jenny', 'Petit Four' and 'Berchigranges'

Narcissus 'Edinburgh' with its pale salmon pink fluffy trumpet. Photo: Sabrina Rothe

Narcissus 'Jenny', all white and looking a bit like a startled maiden. Photo: Sabrina Rothe

 

 Narcissus 'Petit Four' with shades of clotted cream. Photo: Sabrina Rothe

 Narcissus 'Berchigranges', a sublime double variety and the only French narcissus registered by the RHS. 

Photo: Sabrina Rothe

And having seen this gorgeous arrangement below by Eva Sandner Gravesen on her blog Evigglade I have come around to yellow in a big way - how could one fail to love these?

 

Photo: Eva Sandner Gravesen

 
In Norway we call the yellow daffodils 'Påskeliljer' (Easter Lilies) and the white ones with a yellow trumpet are called 'Pinseliljer' (Whit Lilies or Pentecostal Lilies), but then they do flower later than here in the London region. Come Easter I expect we will be watching our first tulips make an appearance, they are already playing peek-a-boo in the border by the front door...