After last fall’s 2nd annual “Paint the Town Yellow” campaign, organizers were pleased.
All over Westporter, groups and individual gardeners had planted daffodils.
Now — as the bulbs sprout — they are really happy.
So are the rest of us — even those who don’t realize where so many beautiful flowers came from.
Prospect Road — with 7,000 daffodils — is particularly gorgeous. Melissa and John Ceriale invite anyone to clip a bouquet in front of #11, 13, 21 and 25, to give to someone who has been bullied — or stopped a bully. (Please take them from the road only — not the garden beyond the stone wall!)
Prospect Road
Also last fall, the National Charity League placed daffodils around the trees at the entrance to Staples High School.
Staples High School
Nearby, parents and children planted them in front of then Bedford Middle School entry drive too.
Bedford Middle School
The Westport Garden Club put daffodils around the Westport Library. “Paint the Town Yellow” organizer Debra Kandrak did the same in front of the pine trees along the William F. Cribari Bridge.
William F. Cribari Bridge
Other residents planted in front of their homes and around their neighborhood.
One Greens Farms scene …
… and another.
“Everywhere I drive, I see a burst of yellow. It makes me smile!” Debra says.
She wonders if one day Westport could have a Daffodil Festival.
Why not? It would sure make other towns green with envy.
Greens Farms Road, at Prospect …
… and the Sherwood Island Connector. (All photos/Debra Kandrak)
Here is Wordsworth’s great poem which many of you know
(ADW Staples 1956)
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
Melissa, you and your husband have done such an AWESOME service to this community! Not just the gorgeous daffodils, but your entire garden expansion! I drive by it every single day!
Class act Ceriales! Happy Spring!!
Sincerely, The Greenlees
I’m Yellow With Envy!
I would love it if Westport could have a daffodil festival like Nantucket. We have our work cut out for us but in time I can see this happening. It’s a big event for Nantucket. Please google it so that you can see what I’m talking about. It all started with one woman planting daffodils along the roadside, now there are millions.
A. David Wunsch love the poem.