A sea of daffodils

Under a layer of ice, the bulbs sit quietly in the moist earth. The dark roots of the chestnut trees protect them through the winter until the first rays of sunshine in Spring, when the warmth calls them back to life. Light green shoots emerge from the brown soil, thick, fleshy ribbon-like leaves push through the cold and protect the actual flower, a golden trumpet crowned with pale petals, which is usually the first to announce the arrival of Spring. The daffodil symbolizes rebirth and renewal, representing security and hope for the future, as well as being the flower of self-esteem and vanity, as told by Ovid in his Metamorphoses. Narcissus was a boy of incredible beauty, son of the nymph Liriope and the river god Cephisus and the story has it that one day, while staring enraptured at his own reflection, he drowned in a pool of water and the nymphs, rushing to save him “saw in his place a flower, yellow in the center and surrounded by white petals”.

Daffodils in all their beauty continue to bloom today at the Kösti nursery at the Heidereggerhof farm, where over the years expert chestnut grower and landscape gardener Johann Laimer, known as Hans, has planted over thirty thousand bulbs in the shade of his chestnut trees. The walk to the daffodil farm begins in Postal, a small village nestled in the sun in the fertile Adige Valley, where Mediterranean and Alpine flora happily co-exist. It begins just above the parish church and briefly follows the Graf-Volkmar trail, then ascends along the Höfeweg trail, first through the forest and then through the vineyards to the Wieslerhof, finally arriving at the Heidereggerhof farm, bathed in every shade of yellow from the last weeks of March onwards. A sea of daffodils, reborn each Spring, sway gently in the sun between light and cold, illuminating the fresh mountain air with a deep yellow.