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It is March and the La Conner Chamber of Commerce’s month-long Daffodil Festival is here. So far the weather, the coronavirus pandemic, governments and people are cooperating. In 2019 cold and snow snuffed that year’s daffodil crop. Last year state and country orders shut down mid-March as COVID-19 conquered the world.

At February’s end some 80 workers were picking the first daffodil stems of the season in Washington Bulb Company fields by Calhoun and Beaver Marsh roads, two of their seven fields totaling 500 acres of daffodils this year. The company has over 100 workers rotating through the fields harvesting as daffodils start to bloom.

“We are at the very start of the harvest. First stems were picked last week,” Brent Roozen, manager of RoozenGaarde, wrote in an email. He could not estimate the length this season will be. It is weather dependent: Cool weather lengthens the season while warmer weather shortens it. The short term forecast is for mild days. If it warms quickly, not all blooming stems will be picked, a function of being short staffed.

Roozen responded with an all capitalized “YES. Yes we do” to needing more workers. “Hiring enough individuals has been a challenge to say the least,” he wrote.

His summary: “The early daffodil varieties should be blooming shortly and it is only a matter of time before the tulips follow. Those who wish to visit RoozenGaarde this spring should plan in advance – capacity limits will be in place and visitors will need to book tickets in advance at http://www.tulips.com! We expect to have tickets available for purchase online by the weekend.”

The fields will turn yellow, primarily, and white, also. Daffodil crops are rotated every three years. The third year, fields are a solid wash of bright yellow. The flowers are left to wither through their bloom cycle and beyond, unlike tulips which are “topped” toward the end of their bloom cycle, the La Conner Chamber states on its Facebook page.

The Washington Bulb Co. farms about 2,000 acres of land, it reports on its website. The 500 acres of daffodils outnumber the 350 acres of tulips. Another 150 acres are in iris. Their single biggest crop is wheat, at 600 acres.

They report shipping over 70 million cut flowers throughout the U.S. and tens of millions of bulbs in the U.S. and Canada annually.

The three major daffodil varieties planted are Dutch Master, Flower Carpet, and Standard Value. Dutch Master is the world’s most popular daffodil, the La Conner Chamber states.