7 March 2017
Wow! What a day. It first started with daffodils and ended with water falls.
Gibbs Gardens are located near Ball Ground, Georgia and were established in the 1980’s by Jim Gibbs, a nurseryman from Atlanta. It is a 300 acre estate/garden with 50 acres of daffodils with over 20 million bulbs and over 100 varieties.
The gates had not opened and therefore I was first in line. I had a ticket for the tram at 10 am and an hour to kill, so I started walking and followed the signs to daffodils. Once you got to “Daffodil Hill”, they were everywhere!
Daffodils belong to the genus Narcissus and they are also called jonquils. As a kid, I knew them as daffodils, jonquils, and by a couple of variety names as yellow jonquil, butter and eggs, and paper whites.
Some think they were named from the Greek legend of Narcissus but no one knows for sure since Narcissus has many connotations.
This was a trip down memory lane for me. What was in bloom in the gardens was exactly what I remember blooming in both my grandmother’s yards: daffodils, yellow bells, bridal wreath, and flowering quince. Today yellow bells are more commonly know as Forsythia and bridal wreath is known as Spirea.
What originally attracted me to daffodils as a kid were their aroma. Some had no smell at all but others could overpower you with their scent. The ones I smelled on the trails were not terribly strong but it could be age has affected my olfactory perception. However, as I walked through parts of the garden it became quite heady.
In addition to daffodils, they have a Manor House which I assume Jim Gibbs lives in part of the year.
They also have a Japanese garden but it was not in bloom this early.
However, in a previous blog I wrote about Pachysandra, or Allegheny Spurge. I had never seen it before. This time I got to see it in bloom! We botanists take our joy where we can get it.
I’ve posted a video of the garden on Facebook so you can get a better concept of the gardens.
After leaving the gardens, I headed for Tulullah Falls. See the next blog.
