It’s time for our third installment of our Birth Flowers Blogs.

March is synonymous with the beginning of Spring, and with Spring, comes daffodils, the birth flower of March!

Birth Flowers – March

Daffodils, also known as Narcissus, has a variety of meanings including, not surprisingly, Spring, but also rebirth, domestic happiness, respect, regard and friendship. Personally, Daffodils are one of our favourite flowers, because they not only look like beautiful little suns, but can also lift your entire day when you see them beaming in the sun, and realise that the winter is not behind us!

The daffodil is the national flower of Wales and the emblem of the Marie Curie Cancer Charity. It also has properties that have been in used in medicine for hundreds of year, right up to the present day, where it is used in the production of a drug known as Galanthamine, for the treatment of Alzheimer’s dementia.

As a species, narcissus are native to meadows and woods in Southwest Europe, North Africa and in the Western Mediterranean. They were also introduced into the Far East prior to the tenth century, making them a truly international flower.

From the late 16^th century, the daffodil was frequently mention in writings, but were often called daffadowndilly!

The happiness that is evoked when fields are lit up by these little rays of sunshine is captured perfectly by the words of William Wordsworth:

“I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o’er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Besides the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine,

And twinkle on the Milky Way,

They stretched in never-ending line,

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they

Out-did the sparkling waves with glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:

I gazed – and gazed – but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought.

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.”

So come on guys! When you see those first daffadowndilly’s smile and remember that Spring is coming and the horrible cold winter is over!!