They are seen along near­ly every road and amid many-a-gar­den in Julian, some areas and yards fea­tur­ing them in full car­pets of flowers.

Julian’s daf­fodils are as much a labor of love as they are a year­ly extrav­a­gan­za. They are plant­ed each Novem­ber, going two decades now,  by orga­nized teams of vol­un­teers that often include whole class­rooms of stu­dents.  A typ­i­cal late fall day in Julian will see any num­ber of adults and kids work­ing near the shoul­der of the road with shov­els and trow­els in hand, while oth­ers stand ready with box­es of bone­meal and over­flow­ing bags of bulbs.

Update 01-31-2021:  Check out the annu­al Julian Daf­fodil Show on the Julian Daf­fodils Face­book Page.

The Daf­fodil Project is the inspi­ra­tion of mas­ter gar­den­er Sal­ly Snipes, also a well-known Julian artist, in mem­o­ry of her father who was him­self an artist and illus­tra­tor and part of Sal­ly’s great inspi­ra­tion to paint water­col­ors of the nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment.  Like the vol­un­teer pool that has grown steadi­ly, the bulbs can mul­ti­ply from year to year under good con­di­tions. The flow­ers seen now push into the mil­lions by some counts.

The daf­fodils pic­tured above left are among the newest ambas­sadors to the scene, grow­ing at road­side next to Mom’s Pies in Wyno­la, on the way into the town of Julian.

Pho­tos above by Bar­bara Swanson