STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK
Jack Sept has been to all three of the Sawtooth Botanical Garden’s Wine and Walk strolls through the garden in late summer. But he never managed to make it to the annual Daffodil Festival because he was always out of town during that time.
Sept and his wife Anne Jeffery made it this year and happily helped themselves to ham and cheese croissants and other brunch items served up by Eileen Reiss as they drank in the fragrance of some of the 30,000 daffodils that were planted in the garden four years ago.
“I love the Wine Walk because it’s a chance to stroll around the garden and see the late summer flowers. The Daffodil Festival shows that winter’s gone and spring’s here,” he said.
Kids led their mothers around the garden on Saturday admiring a giant dog sculpture on the way and stopping to play in the Sawtooth Sandbox. And seniors enjoyed a luncheon of chicken salad croissants and tortellini before strolling the grounds as the Sawtooth Botanical Garden opened the curtains on its summer season.
“The Daffodil Festival is a nice way to ramp up into summer,” said Executive Director Jen Smith. “We go from zero to 60 here. This is a nice relaxed weekend and next weekend we’ll have dozens of kids running around as we hold the annual Bug Zoo Festival.”
Judy Wampler was among the seniors who turned out to see the garden via a Senior Connection tour designed to honor mothers during Mother’s Day Weekend. She wore a summer straw hat with a big flower and a giant orange flower on her scarf as she walked amidst the daffodils and 14 sculptures that have been bequeathed to the garden.
“When I was in kindergarten, they made me a forget me not, so I’ve been a forget me not all my life,” she recounted. “But I love daffodils. First of all, they’re yellow, a bright color. And they’re hearty, they stand up nice. Look at all of them here, even with the cold windy weather we had.”
The daffodils began blooming a few weeks ago, thumbing their noses at occasional snow showers and brisk winds, said Garden Manager K. O. Ogilvie. Ogilvie said she expects them to continue to bloom a couple more weeks.
“Daffodils last a long time,” said Lynda Mancha. “And what a lot of people don’t realize is that they have a wonderful fragrance. Just go smell one!”