“Fair daffodils we weep to see you fade away so soon…” For some reason I can still remember the whole of this 17th Century poem having had to learn it at school when I was 13. But this year, they didn’t fade away too soon! Despite popping up in January thinking it was Spring, the daffodils not only made it to our Parish Open Day, but they now look set to make it to the Easter holidays – with a bit of help from Easter’s early calendar date. And how lovely they looked on our Parish Open Day in that glorious sunshine! What a perfect start to our season. Thank you to the 500 of you that joined us to celebrate our opening Sunday.
Hopefully you will return to the Gardens during the summer to see the wonderful progression of buds and blooms that nature magically conjures for us – with a little help from its good-looking assistants, our hard-working Gardens Team and chief after-hours Garden warden, Oscar the Great Dane. You too can be a part of nature’s spectacular show this summer if you are an artist of beautiful three-dimensional objects. We are inviting submissions for a Sculpture Trail in the Gardens this June and July. This is an opportunity to display your work to our visitors and, if you wish, offer it for sale commission-free (all the details are on our website). After hours, it will be sniffed by our Garden warden, who does have his own particular way of expressing his critical appraisal – but that’s not going to happen to your masterpiece! No – your work, I’m sure, will bedazzle both man and beast in the bouquet of beauty that is Knebworth House Gardens at the height of summer!
Henry Lytton Cobbold
www.knebworthhouse.com