Spring has sprung, and the vibrant yellow colours of the season are peeping through trees and across the hills.
The distinctive golden daffodil, a firm favourite in the horticultural world, is the permanent subject of great care at a longstanding farm in the Yarra Ranges.
Cross-breeding and selecting varieties that they hope will hold up to the Australian climate in years to come, Will and Christine Ashburner, are in full swing tending their daffodil farm Hancocks on a little corner in Menzies Creek.
Tending a patch of new varieties, they have personally grown, Will has a diligent and thorough process which produces an array of distinctive and hardy flowers that flourish under the Australian sun.
“I’ve been breeding specifically for the suitability of the climate, I go around and select the ones I think are good – we want to breed ones that are going to grow,” said Will.
“If they multiply and do well here, we know they will do well in our climate,” said Christine.
With records going back over a hundred years, Will said they have noticed the flowering time trending earlier in the last few seasons.
“They’re definitely getting earlier,” he said.
“This year we had daffodils flowering in May, June, July and August and September is usually the main peak,” he said.
There are thousands of varieties available on the flower farm, and the duo grow tonnes of bulbs every year and work hard to collate bulbs of the daffodils that perform well.
“It takes around three or four years to grow them from seed,” said Will.
“Different varieties also flower at different times,” said Christine.
“In another three weeks, the fields will be full, that will just be solid daffodils – this is just the beginning,” she said.
With a little roadside store available for the public, Christine said the farm focuses on their work with bulbs, producing a huge variety to mail order across Australia.
“We’re mostly bulb growers, they multiply and then we dig them up – there’s a lot of work in harvesting,” she said.
Planting happens in the early part of the year, and later on throughout the summer, the harder work of retrieving bulbs takes place across the property.
Height, strength and flowering ability of the daffodil varieties are important and Will is always honing the collection on the farm, growing everything from hoop petticoats to tazettas.
“We will see how strong growing they are, how tall and big,” he said.
Daffodils are one of the first flowers to bloom, usually starting in late winter and continuing through spring, and the duo both love the flowers for their hardiness.
Also appearing in shades of white, pink and oranges, with multi flowering stems and large and small sizes, the varieties of the daffodils are seemingly endless.
Describing the new varieties as ‘clean stock’, Will said that breeding new varieties is important as older ones don’t have as much vigour as they age.
A highly experienced horticulturist, Will has been working the farm with Christine, who worked in botany at Monash University, for over 20 years.
“I’ve always bred plants,” said Will.
Founded by Harry Brown in 1917, the 35-acre site has been a daffodil farm for over 100 years now, and the Ashburner family is the fourth family to own the farm, which sits on the edge of the eucalyptus forest in the Dandenong Ranges.
“We’ve got lots of lovely return customers who come and buy flowers,” said Christine.
The duo were also featured recently on a My Garden Path segment on ABC’s Gardening Australia last year in August, breaking down some nuances behind their growing process for the media team, filming in the year before and feature often in local and metropolitan flower shows. .
Brought to Australia during the first days of European colonisation, daffodils remain popular and can still be found growing wild across the country, although now there are less growers that focus solely on the distinctive bloom.
Popping up across the hills, daffodils will continue their spring show in splashes of yellow, while the native wattle takes care of the sky.
With the cheeky yellow flower popping up earlier every year, the couple remain focused on cross-breeding varieties on the farm that are unlike any other in Australia and designed to last.
“They are grown here, they’re totally unique,” said Will.
With new varieties always on the horizon, the daffodil famers of Menzies Creek have no plans to slow down just yet.
“You can just plant them and forget them,” Will said.
“I do like some of the frilly varieties, although they are all so different,” said Christine.
