IN the 100th year since the death of the man who saved the daffodil from extinction, the RHS hopes to safeguard the bulb from the perils of a changing climate. In 1916, the perhaps untrumpeted James Kirkham Ramsbottom was enlisted to investigate a disease that had been threatening, not only daffodils, but commercial crops and specialist collections, for decades. ‘If the bulbs are left to themselves, the bulb industry will soon cease to exist,’ he wrote. Luckily for Wales, springtime kitchens across the UK and many a Wordsworth fan, he found that the culprit was a kind of eelworm and that boiling narcissus bulbs in hot water (precisely 43°C) killed the eel-worm, but left the bulb intact—a process still used industrially today. Ramsbottom’s original copper boiler is at RHS Garden…
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Country Life (Digital) - 1 Issue, February 19, 2025