THE daffodil – delightful flower, triumphant ‘trumpeter of spring’. If a single bloom is lovely then ten thousand must be ten thousand times more so. Goes without saying, yes? William Wordsworth might be quoted as proof. “Ten thousand saw I at a glance/ Tossing their heads in sprightly dance”, he wrote of the blooms by Ullswater.

Before proceeding, we might note it was actually Wordworth’s sister Dorothy who made the crucial observation – or at any rate set it down in terms later borrowed by William, a frequent practice, for his poem. “I never saw daffodils so beautiful,” she recorded in her journal for April 15, 2002. “They grew among the mossy stones. Some rested their heads on these stones as a pillow for weariness, and the rest tossed and reeled and danced, and seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind that blew upon them over the lake.”

The daffodils thus immortalised in both poetry and prose by the Wordsworths were wild. Smaller and more sturdy than cultivated varieties, they are at home in the countryside. Woods and riversides are their most favoured habitats. Farndale, of course, displays them famously by the river Dove. The best woodland displays I know are in neighbouring Rosedale, between Askew and Appleton-le-Moors. Ullswater now has only sparse displays, chiefly of cultivated daffodils.

Only rarely do these look good outside gardens. At Castle Howard the two can be judged together. Naturalised along the terrace to the Temple of the Four Winds are both wild and cultivated varieties. Go and look for yourself and decide whether much of the charm of the wild daffodils is lost with the large blooms.

One place where these reign in splendour is the banks of York’s city walls. Though there are no wild daffodils for comparison, in the mind’s eye those seem less fitting. The scale of the banks and walls suits the large blooms. And, post-flowering, the plants can be left for the two months or so that is ideal before cutting down without forming the eyesore often presented elsewhere.

Which brings us to the now ubiquitous roadside planting of daffodils near towns and villages. Here is where the apparent belief that if one daffodil is beautiful ten thousand must be that much more so goes badly wrong. Often the spectacle is far too much in your face. Rather than a picture of charm and delicacy, there’s horticultural bling.

I could name half a dozen places as evidence. But, to restrict reader wrath, I’ll give you just one – Ripon. Its bypass is dense with daffodils – certainly ten thousand or more. The spectacle is like gorging on an over-rich cake. The cost of planting might have been better spent on a few trees, or, in these cash-strapped days, devoted to community services.

Still, don’t misunderstand me. Overkill the overplanting might be, but it’s still sad to see the passing of the daffodils. As Andrew Marvell, another poet-celebrant of perhaps Britain’s best-loved flower wrote: “Fair daffodils, we weep to see /You haste away so soon…/ We have short time to stay, as you, /We have as short a spring; /As quick a growth to meet decay.” So we must enjoy them while we can, even if there sometimes are too many, and of wrong sort.