Sooley’s preoccupation dates back to boyhood, when he stood before poet William Wordsworth’s “host of golden daffodils” along Cumbria’s Ullswater Lake. He is still fascinated with the flower’s simplest forms, but he’s also struck by breeders’ novelties, including whites with flesh-pink cups he calls “a Frankenstein triumph of father nature.”
Left: ‘Bell Song’ is a fragrant, midseason selection of Narcissus jonquilla that grows 14 to 16 inches high; each flower stem produces ivory blooms with pink cups. johnscheepers.com
