The wild daffodil is back in the Kloosterbosje on the edge of Schoonebeek. The bulbous plant disappeared from the forest more than fifty years ago, but thanks to the efforts of the De Wilde Narcis working group, the soil turns yellow again in March with the wild flowers.
“Here we see a bulb bank with seedlings,” says Wim Maatje of the De Wilde Narcis working group. “We harvested the seed two years ago and we sown it here to start new daffodils. So these seedlings are two years old. It takes about four or five years for the first flowers to start coming.”
The working group started harvesting and distributing the bulbs two years ago. “We have sown in various places and you can see the result here. What we also do is remove bulbs from farms whose gardens are being renovated and where they would be lost. We plant them in a bulb bank to store them, to propagate them. and to make sure they come back to the right place.”