REPLY: [pbs] Narcissus fly/ & TOW
Brian Roth (Sat, 25 Jan 2003 22:28:01 PST)
Dave,
Many years ago in the days of literal 'horse power', there were many
more farmsteads here in the mid Willamette Valley than there are today.
After the old (many times poorly built) houses were torn down, the
ground was incorporated into the increasingly large fields made possible
by diesel power. The old hardy daffodils were then spread around by
tillage activities. There are several such sites within a few miles of
my location.
On sites that were never plowed, there are frequently hydrangeas,
lilacs, and an apple tree or two.
Anyway, that's my version of the feral daffodil history, which is not to
say that there are not old abandoned daffodil fields up north in your
part of the valley.
Also a note on Camassia, there are several acres of them growing here
in a wooded area just below my house. They don't grow much in the
spots where water consistantly stands in the winter, but very close, in
the dappled shade of Oregon Ash - Fraxinus latifolia and Oregon White
Oak -- Quercus garryana. They grow up in and amongst clumps of Juncus
patens. They are frequently flooded November to March. And bone dry
August to October.
Brian Roth
Mild, Wet Mediterranean Western Oregon usa
(near I-5 Albany)
DaveKarn@aol.com wrote:
. I have driven around the Willamette Valley extensively in the
Spring and have often been amazed the quantity of feral daffodils one
will find. Apparently, at one time many years ago, the ubiquitous
yellow trumpet one sees growing everywhere in Spring was planted in
bulb growing fields for cut flowers and dry bulb sales. Those fields
are now often pastures. The bulbs that were missed when the fields
were dug have since multiplied into great swaths of yellow flowers
visible from some distance. And, as I previously mentioned, fence
rows and gardens everywhere each Spring sport enormous quantities of
daffodils.