First blooms of the daffodil season start to show in Skagit Valley. Here’s where to tour
This March marks the eighth annual La Conner Daffodil Festival, and blooms of bright yellow are beginning to show at the RoozenGaarde flower farm.
While one field of daffodils off McLean Road is showing its first blooms, Brent Roozen of RoozenGaarde said the farm’s roughly 450 acres of daffodils will likely be speckled with yellow early next week.
“By mid-March, I think we’ll start to see some full fields of color,” he said.
If the weather changes, though, the daffodils could bloom before or after Roozen’s prediction.
Cooler weather means the daffodils will bloom later than predicted, warmer weather means they will bloom sooner, Roozen said.
RoozenGaarde crews started harvesting daffodils early this week for sale online and at the grower’s gift shop on Beaver Marsh Road.
The daffodils are harvested about five days before they bloom, when they look like sticks of asparagus, Roozen said.
The daffodils will begin to bloom a few days after the ends of the stems are cut off, just like asparagus, and the flowers are put in water.
Every year, daffodils get more and more attention from visitors who realize that tulips aren’t the only flower in the Skagit Valley.
Tours through the daffodil fields are self-guided and many visitors spend time in La Conner when they visit RoozenGaarde, Roozen said.
Flower bulbs are the main crop in RoozenGaarde’s fields, which the grower harvests and sells after the spring bloom, Roozen said.
The bulbs are a hardy perennial and grow back year after year without having to be dug up in the fall and replanted in the spring.
Roozen said that RoozenGaarde planted daffodil bulbs in a horse pasture just north of the current farm about 20 years ago.
In about two weeks, that pasture will be in bloom with the daffodils that have come up every year since, he said.
“We’ve got just about the world’s best growing climate for daffodils,” Roozen said.
This story was originally published March 6, 2022 at 5:00 AM.