Daffodil season is here and with it the chance to get outdoors and explore some of Scotland’s most beautiful gardens. These cheerful, yellow flowers are the symbol of spring and throughout March and April they will be transforming lawns, meadows, flowerbeds and hedgerows with their golden blooms.
Scotland has the perfect climate for daffodils and it has a unique place in the heritage of the flower as many of the horticultural world’s most famous varieties were bred here by dedicated enthusiasts.
Today you can discover collections of some of the rarest and most sought-after varieties; walk through fields of scented daffodils; get up close to perfectly-grown specimens at a spring bulb show or simply enjoy the spectacle of hundreds of thousands of blooms glowing in the sunshine.
Discover Scottish Gardens is encouraging everyone to shake off the last vestiges of winter and immerse themselves in one of the most glorious sights of the season at some of the many gardens and events that will be marking daffodil season, including:
Scotland’s Daffodil Festival 2024,
Backhouse Rossie Estate, Cupar, Fife.
Backhouse Rossie is home to some of the very first cultivars that were created from wild daffodils and every year it holds the Scottish Daffodil Festival during flowering season, when thousands of heritage, modern and scented varieties are in bloom. This year’s event takes place on Saturday, 13 and Sunday, 14 April when the gardens surrounding the house will be filled with vintage fete stalls, plant sales, artisan food vans, plant nurseries and displays of daffodils of all kinds.
www.backhouserossie.co.uk/daffodil-festival-2024/
Brodie Castle’s Heritage Blooms
Brodie, Forres, Moray IV36 2TE
At the turn of the 20th century, Major Ian Brodie, 24th Laird of Brodie, began a programme of daffodil breeding that would eventually lead to the creation of more than 400 new varieties. Over a hundred of these are still grown at Brodie alongside hundreds of thousands of other daffodils which bloom in the walled garden and parkland that surround the 16th century pink-harled castle.
Caley Spring Bulb Show
Saughton Park, 60a Ford Road, Edinburgh EH11 3HR
On Saturday, 6 and Sunday, 7 April The Caley Spring Bulb Show will burst into flower. This is where members of the Royal Caledonian Horticultural Society, as well as the public, show off their gardening prowess with thousands of pots of beautiful spring bulbs. There are classes for children and beginners as well as for expert growers and the McHattie Room, where the Show is held, will be filled with glorious scents.
Threave’s Daffodil Bank
Castle Douglas, Dumfries and Galloway DG7 1RX
On a south-facing bank beneath the mansionhouse at Threave, more than 360 varieties of daffodils are turning their trumpets towards the sun. Every year the bulbs increase in number, transforming even more of this 64 acre garden into an unmissable spectacle. Elsewhere there are flowering trees, a rock garden, a productive walled garden and one of Scotland’s few outdoor fruiting grapevines.
Dumfries House’s Daffodil Avenue
Cumnock, Ayrshire KA18 2NJ
Following the restoration of the category-A listed Temple Gate at Dumfries House, 500,000 daffodil bulbs were planted along both sides of the tree-lined ride that leads to it. Varieties were carefully chosen to produce a long flowering period and so the show starts in March and continues all the way through April.
Ballindalloch’s Miles of Daffodils
Ballindalloch, Banffshire AB37 9AX
The two-mile long stream of daffodils that greets visitors to Ballindalloch Castle in April is one of the most extensive bulb displays in Scotland. It comes into flower ahead of rhododendrons and bluebells and provides a scented bridge between early and late spring.
