{"id":6948,"date":"2016-02-08T22:49:48","date_gmt":"2016-02-09T03:49:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/?p=6948"},"modified":"2017-04-20T12:48:06","modified_gmt":"2017-04-20T16:48:06","slug":"the-first","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/?p=6948","title":{"rendered":"The first"},"content":{"rendered":"

Daffodils are kind of \u2026 daffy. They come up too early every year, oblivious to the dangers that are looming just over the snow-laden cloud-filled horizon, sticking their cheerful faces to the sun at the first sign of warmth.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet there’s something about seeing the first one. It gives you a blindly loyal\u00a0kind of hope, like a dog who waits expectantly at the door for two hours before the master of the house comes home.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve kept a naturalist journal since 2008, and in about half of these eight springs I have been exclaiming over the fate of the daffodils, and how EARLY they are! <\/span><\/p>\n

Gardening sites across the Internet<\/a> are filled with breathless questions from people who are aghast that their daffodils are up ALREADY!<\/span><\/p>\n

I think of them as a late-February flower, but my observations are inconsistent.<\/p>\n

In 2009, the daffodils were up around February 16-17, not quite blooming.\u00a0In 2008 and 2010, I noted their blossoms a full month later, on March 24.\u00a0In\u00a02012, it was March 4.<\/p>\n

In 2013, their leaves were out of the ground on a warm weekend Jan. 19-20. I was appalled. They didn\u2019t die. Daffodils are hardy. <\/span><\/p>\n

They grow from bulbs that don’t ever seem to die. This is why you can see big patches of them at the site of pioneer cabins that disintegrated decades ago.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2014, the blossoms appeared Feb. 22-23.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Last year, I didn\u2019t bother to note them until March 16. They may have been around earlier.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For 2016, let it be told: I saw the first blossoms on Feb. 2, last Tuesday.\u00a0<\/span>OK, that is early.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Not as early as in England and Northern Ireland, though. The daffodils there blossomed in mid-December.<\/a><\/p>\n

Fear not, friends. The daffodils won’t die off if they blossom in the first week of February, the middle of January, or in time for Christmas.<\/p>\n

They just like the warmth. That’s what prompts them to come up. Worst case, the leaves and flowers die. No worries.<\/p>\n

They’ll be back.<\/p>\n

If you’re really concerned, you can add some extra mulch and cover them with tarp or newspaper spread over some wooden spikes to keep them cozy at night.<\/p>\n

Today’s penny is 2013, the previous year that the daffodils were up SO EARLY!<\/p>\n

\"feb<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Daffodils are kind of \u2026 daffy. They come up too early every year, oblivious to the dangers that are looming just over the snow-laden cloud-filled horizon, sticking their cheerful faces to the sun at the first sign of warmth. Yet there’s something about seeing the first one. It gives you a blindly loyal\u00a0kind of hope, … read more The first<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6950,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[321],"tags":[94,713,714,715,712,716,157,711,710,717,62],"class_list":["post-6948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tress","tag-94","tag-bloom","tag-blossom","tag-daffodil","tag-dates","tag-early","tag-flowers","tag-journal","tag-naturalist","tag-season","tag-time"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6948"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6948\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6965,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6948\/revisions\/6965"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}