Recaptured Garden Legacies
From Southern American Gardens of the 19th and Early 20th Centuries
From Southern American Gardens of the 19th and Early 20th Centuries
heirloom tazettas lurk, small daffodil gems from a bygone era of American gardening. Sold for indoor forcing as "polyanthus narcissus," these Dutch and Mediterranean beauties found homes in the open garden as early as 1813.
Though a simple flower, these tazettas boast a wider array of floret form, bloom season and fragrance than the familiar historic tazettas on the commercial market today.
The flowers shown here are the prized culmination of twenty-five years of collecting in north Florida, south Georgia and Natchez, Mississippi.
Though there are upwards of forty heirloom tazettas in the collection, most are represented by a meagre handful of bulbs. Some multiply well, others seem loathe to indulge in such extravagant behavior. It's terrifying to consider cutting up a bulb for propagation when you only have one or three total. Chipping has begun, cautiously, with some cultivars. While it will be years before many will be available for sale, some may be available sooner.
Monticello, Florida
Garden sleuthing is archaeology via flowers, with a stiff dollop of genealogy on top. One must ascertain the age of the garden and the layers of plantings by subsequent gardeners, using cultivars as dating tools. Researching property owners and obtaining oral histories whenever possible help determine who could have been the gardener(s). Their dates of active gardening then reinforces the layers of garden design - who could have planted what where and when. Armed with this information, catalog research can then suggest possible cultivar identification.
The images above are of gardens and garden sites from which some of the tazettas here were collected. The majority of garden sites date from around 1900 to the 1920s; one notable Natchez site dates considerably earlier.
Maison de la Chat Chartreux