Seeking Daffodils
by Suzanne Daub
Daffodils come in a stunning range of colors, shapes, and sizes, and
every year new variations are introduced. With millions blooming every
year on Nantucket, it can be hard to pick a favorite. The most commonly
recognized is the trumpet daffodil with yellow petals (perianth) and yellow
cup (corona), with the cup as long or longer than the petals and one bloom
per stem, but there are thousands more. According to the American Daffodil
Society website, there are more than 25,000 registered cultivars (named
hybrids) divided among the thirteen divisions of the official classification
system.
With so many, once you decide which ones you'd like to grow, how do
you discover their names? Was the pretty yellow-and-orange daffodil called
American Dream or Pacific Rim? Was the double daffodil with the pink-andwhite
petals called Marabou or Marmalade?
Nancy Tackett and Ben Blake have come up with the answer.
These two daffodil aficiondos and computer professionals have
designed and developed DaffSeek.com, a daffodil photo database and
search tool that is an amazing resource for daffodil growers. DaffSeek has
about 23,000 named daffodils in the database and about 24,000 photos of
daffodils. The website can currently be used in seven different languages.
Tackett and Blake are co-chairs of the American Daffodil Society
Internet Services Committee, and it took them about four years of work to
create DaffSeek. Blake developed and programmed the site with a goal of
designing it so that any level of gardener can easily use it. Tackett collects
daffodil information and preps it for loading into DaffSeek. In addition, she
coordinates with 286 photographers from 22 countries, then initiates the
processing and photo updating. "Twenty-nine volunteers help with
DaffSeek, and they're a Godsend!" Tackett commented. "One thing we
never expected is how involved people would be in updating it," added
Blake.
Tackett and Blake don't just work with virtual daffodils, they grow them
as well. "I was raised on a farm in southwest Iowa. When we bought our
first home in California, I wanted to start gardening, and daffodils came to
mind," Tacket explained. "I worked with Bob Spotts, and he used to bring in
big bunches of daffodils and always used to say 'you too can grow these.'" She tried and succeeded beautifully. "The daffodil universe may be a small
universe, but it's a happy one!"
Blake was not as devoted to daffodils until he and Tackett began going
overseas for daffodil events such as the centenary of The Daffodil Society in
Great Britian. They now enter daffodil shows together and have won several
Best in Show Awards. Their current favorite is Mesa Verde, a greenish cultivar
introduced by friend and colleague Bob Spotts. In addition to winning
awards for daffodils, Tackett and Blake were also awarded both the AMS
Gold Medal and the Royal Horticulture Peter Barr Cup for creating DaffSeek
and providing the world with internet daffodil resources.
Earlier this April, the couple was asked to judge at the American Daffodil
Society's National Show, where they announced their newest daffodil website:
DaffNet.org, which is a discussion forum for all things daffodil.
This weekend Nancy Tackett and Ben Blake will be here on-island to
judge the Nantucket Garden Club's Daffodil Show held at Bartlett's Farm Saturday and Sunday, April 28 and 29. "It's our first time on Nantucket, and
we're very excited."