REPLY: [pbs] Narcissus fly/ & TOW

Brian Roth sevenmi@dnc.net
Sat, 25 Jan 2003 22:28:01 PST
Dave,
Many years ago in the days of literal 'horse power', there were many 
more farmsteads here in the mid Willamette Valley than there are today.  
After the old (many times poorly built) houses were torn down, the 
ground was incorporated into the increasingly large fields made possible 
by  diesel power.  The old hardy daffodils were then spread around by 
tillage activities. There are several such sites within a few miles of  
my location. 
On sites that were never plowed, there are frequently hydrangeas, 
lilacs, and an apple tree or two.

Anyway, that's my version of the feral daffodil history, which is not to 
say that there are not  old abandoned daffodil fields up north in your 
part of the valley.

Also a note on Camassia,  there are several acres of them growing here 
in a wooded  area just below my house.  They don't grow much in the 
spots where water consistantly stands in the winter, but very close, in 
the dappled shade of Oregon Ash - Fraxinus latifolia and Oregon White 
Oak -- Quercus garryana.  They grow up in and amongst clumps of Juncus 
patens.  They are frequently flooded November to March.  And bone dry 
August to October.

Brian Roth
Mild, Wet Mediterranean Western Oregon usa
(near I-5 Albany)
DaveKarn@aol.com wrote:

> 
> .  I have driven around the Willamette Valley extensively in the 
> Spring and have often been amazed the quantity of feral daffodils one 
> will find.  Apparently, at one time many years ago, the ubiquitous 
> yellow trumpet one sees growing everywhere in Spring was planted in 
> bulb growing fields for cut flowers and dry bulb sales.  Those fields 
> are now often pastures.  The bulbs that were missed when the fields 
> were dug have since multiplied into great swaths of yellow flowers 
> visible from some distance.  And, as I previously mentioned, fence 
> rows and gardens everywhere each Spring sport enormous quantities of 
> daffodils. 



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