It's Daffodil time again

Despite our crazy ("unsettled") weather these past several months, the Daffodils have still remembered to flower at approximately the right time - although many of them were very early this year.

One of my favourite types is "Soleil d'Or" with its multiple-headed stems bearing two-tone flowers:

The little white tips on the yellow petals are very characteristic of this variety.

This is another variety very popular in the UK - "Tête à Tête":

I have little clumps of them growing in several places round my garden. Their diminutive size makes them ideal for small gardens - as well as less vulnerable to windy weather!

I also have some in pots, so that they are portable. Here is one pot outside our front door, attempting to distract attention away from a rather unsightly drainpipe.

The sunken pot arrangement means that I can easily replace the plant in the smaller pot when it has finished flowering. One or two of the pots have been brought indoors at flowering time too, as an alternative to buying a bunch of cut flowers. They look nice this way, but they don't last long. The sudden exposure to much warmer conditions causes them to go over much more quickly.

My Iris Reticulata have been notable by their absence this year. They only seem to last a year or two, unlike Daffodils which come back year after year. I didn't plant any new Irises last year, and very few have come up. This is one of them:

How are your bulbs doing this year?