March 1, 2025
By Jane Garmey
Photographs by Rana Faure
For a few precious weeks beginning around mid April, cars swerve to a stop on Salmon Kill Road in Lakeville; bicyclists and hikers gaze, mesmerized. Their attention is directed toward a ravishing sweep of more than 50,000 daffodils, stretching as far as the eye can see in front of a picture-perfect 1797 saltbox.
This breathtaking display, immortalized by the 19th-century English poet William Wordsworth as “fluttering and dancing in the breeze,” is a glorious reminder that winter is finally over and spring is here.
When Inge Heckel, former president of the New York School of Interior Design, purchased her house in 1998, it came with the incredible bonus of an acre of daffodils. They were planted by Pearce Davis, the previous owner but one. He was an economics professor who had owned the house for more than 50 years. It was his idea to fill the acre that the daffodil field now occupies. To do this, he must have planted at least 1,000 daffodils a year.
For any gardener or garden lover, inheriting an established field of daffodils of this size is like winning the lottery. Each year, Inge and her husband, Jeff Hamlin, add more daffodils along the fence line and fill in any bare spots they find. However, Inge sees her role as more caretaker than curator. As she explains, “I just leave everything alone; but it is critical for the field to be mowed annually, and I wait until August to do that.” Some years, depending on how fast and tall the meadow grows back, she will have it mowed again in October so the daffodils will have an easier time of pushing through the grass in the spring.
Cultivating a low-maintenance garden is today’s hot topic. Wildflower meadows, drifts of native blooms, adopting organic practices, and moving away from perfectly mown lawns are all part of a movement to bring a more natural and less cultivated look to our gardens, and to design them with ecology in mind. What this usually means is not so much a low but a lower-maintenance garden. A garden of daffodils, however, is truly low maintenance.
There are 36 known varieties of daffodils and literally thousands of cultivars. We know they flourished in gardens as long ago as 300 BC, when the Greek botanist and philosopher Theophrastus listed and described them. Spreading from Europe to northern Africa, daffodils were brought to Britain by the Romans. In addition to being low maintenance, their other virtues include being deer resistant, self-propagating, and easily able to multiply. All they ask for is a good haircut once or twice a year. What more could one ask from any plant? Think Wordsworth, spring, and drifts of glorious blooms. And for those lucky enough to live in this part of the Northwest Corner, don’t forgo the pleasure of making a detour to see Inge and Jeff’s daffodils.
