Last month our garden club gave a living gift to Ware Academy in Gloucester, a gift that will continue to give each spring. We planted 2,100 daffodil bulbs, the first installment of a three-year plan to plant A River of Daffodils at the school. Over 34 members of the club, husbands and children participated in the morning labor of love.

Husbands arrived on this warm, sunny morning with several truckloads of compost from Yorktown to prepare the base for the raised bed. Using a metal grid to mark evenly spaced squares, members went to work placing the bulbs selected from Brent and Becky’s Bulbs. More truckloads of compost fully covered the bulbs, evenly spread by hand. A final 4 yards of pine bark supplied by husbands topped off the project.

The daffodils bulbs selected for the first year of the three year project are Pink Charm, Ice Follies, Tripartite, February Gold and Geranium. These glorious daffodils will be in bloom at Ware Academy during the community’s Daffodil Festival on March 26 – 27, 2011.  On the same weekend, the Garden Club of Gloucester will hold their 61st Annual Daffodil Show at Ware Academy, a new location for the show. Be sure to look for the new River of Daffodils and stop in and visit the show where hundreds of daffodils in a vast array of sizes and colors will be displayed.

Ware Academy is located on John Clayton Memorial Highway conveniently located between Gloucester Courthouse and Brent and Becky’s Bulbs.

Ann Hohenberger, The Garden Club of Gloucester