Irene and I moved to our current home in June 2004 and have been planting spring bulbs each fall ever since. Two years ago, we decided that we should celebrate the end of winter with a Thank God It’s Spring Daffodil Party, and now pack the house and garden with friends each April on the first or second Saturday. This year we ate, drank, and made merry from noon until 9:00 p.m.

There’s a bell curve to the rise and fall of the two-month daffodil season, but I always count the blooms the afternoon of the party to see how much progress we’ve made from year to year due to both new bulb planting and intense fertilization.

At our April 8, 2006 party, we had 635 daffodils in bloom.

On April 14, 2007, we had 939 daffodils in bloom.

Yesterday, we had an amazing—

—2,568 blooms! These were two of them, and here are others.