It’s all blooming marvellous at Aberglasney House and Gardens in the Tywi Valley, with possibly the finest display of daffodils in Wales.
But green-fingered gardeners are being urged not to forget other plants as Aberglasney starts to stage its monthly specialist plant sales.
“We have visiting nurseries coming to Aberglasney on the first Saturday of each month from March to October,” said head gardener Joseph Atkin.
“The daffodils in March are brilliant, but I don’t want people to forget that there’s much, much more on offer here at Aberglasney.
“The sales will be taking place between 10:30am – 4:00pm on the first Saturday of each month, starting this Saturday.
“The event is free to all members of the public.
“The plant sales are designed to give keen gardeners and plant hunters the opportunity to see what specialist growers have for sale throughout the year.
“The Aberglasney shop will also be having a wider range of plants available and entry to the shop is free to all members of the public throughout the year.”
Mr Atkin said he hoped many people attending the free plant sales would also take the opportunity of visiting the historic heritage gardens at Aberglasney.
“Of course, the displays of daffodils are something else, with them springing up everywhere.
“It is all thanks to some dedicated spadework a few months ago at Aberglasney Gardens, when an estimated 9,000 blooms were planted in anticipation of the Daffodil Festival during the month of March.
“This is very much when the hard work pays off. They have just started showing now and they should carry on flowering through to early May. Our collection of daffodils is about three times as big as it was.”
The cadmium yellow-toned bloom is what most of us bring to mind when we think of the daffodil, but the flower has a lot more surprises in store for Aberglasney visitors.
Mr Atkin added: “People think of the common yellow ones but there is a great variety of daffodils, with white through to pink flowers. They are some of the oldest bred flowers and they are native to Wales.”
The festival continues at the garden until March 31, with all 12 of the sub-divisions of narcissus on offer and with naturalistic plantings, bulb galleries and crocus drifts in the upper walled garden.
The Upper Walled garden lawn has had drifts of more than 5,000 Crocus planted to brighten up March. There are also grass land plantings of nine thousand Chionodoxa and Scilla and new drifts of wetland Fritillaries near Pigeon House Wood.
For more information visit http://www.aberglasney.org/
