Saturday is Daffodil Day in Muskogee

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By CATHY SPAULDING/Phoenix Staff Writer
Go beyond their “candlestick telephone” shape, and you might see that not all daffodils look alike. 
“Some are four inches tall with tiny blooms. Some are 20 inches tall,” said Martha Stoodley of the Muskogee Garden Club. “The blooms come in white, yellow, orange, even pink.”
Visitors can see such variety when at the annual Daffodil Day and Tea, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday at the Thomas-Foreman Historic Home, 1419 W. Okmulgee Ave.
More than 3,000 daffodils surround the home, built in 1898 for Indian Territory judge John R. Thomas. 
“We have at least 15 varieties,” Stoodley said. “Two thousand bulbs were planted by the Garden Club three years ago. Last year, we added another 1,000, and in the winter we planted 600.”
Daffodil Day began several years ago, when the Garden Club discovered Oklahoma was the only state in the region without a daffodil festival, Stoodley said.
For $5, visitors to Saturday’s celebration can view the daffodils, while enjoying tea with sandwiches and cookies.
For $10, visitors can enjoy events at the home, as well as a trolley ride to and from Three Rivers Museum. The Muskogee Arts Council is marking Daffodil Day with a judged art show at the museum.
“We have daffodil paintings, sculpture. Someone has panted a garden bench,” said Liz Wells, past president of the Muskogee Art Guild.
Saturday’s celebration will go beyond daffodils and art works.
Muskogee County Master Gardeners will sponsor a plant sale at the Thomas-Foreman Home.
“There will be plants from their gardens, such as sedum and other succulents,” Stoodley said. “They will have day lilies, basil, thyme, vegetable starters — things you can take and put in your own garden.”
Master Gardener David Redding said he has grown Shasta daisies, Mexican fern, even naked ladies.
“Those are bulbs in which the foliage comes up before they bloom,” Redding said, adding that the ladies show their pink petals in August, after other flowers have finished blooming.

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