50 Years of the Daffodil Festival
The Daffodil Festival celebrates five decades.
Written by Brian Bushard
Photography by Kit Noble and courtesy of Mary Malavase, Beverly Hall and the Nantucket Historical Association
It started as one woman’s dream of planting 1 million daffodil bulbs around the island. Jean MacAusland, then president of the Nantucket Garden Club, knew daffodils would fare well in Nantucket’s sandy soil. She also knew the island’s growing deer and rabbit populations wouldn’t go anywhere near them (they contain toxic alkaloids that make them unappetizing to mammals). And to top it all off, they’re one of the easiest perennial flowers to grow. Once you plant the bulbs in the fall, you can forget about them until they bloom the next spring, and the spring after that. MacAusland handed out brown paper bags full of the bulbs at the first Daffodil Show at the former Boys Club in 1975. All she asked was that the bulbs be planted on Nantucket. Three years later, the Garden Club planted some 30,000 bulbs. In 1979, MacAusland, then publisher of Gourmet magazine, purchased another eight tons of daffodil bulbs.
Now, fifty years after that first show, it is estimated Nantucket has more than 4 million daffodils in bloom. The festival MacAusland created has also blossomed into one of the biggest community events on the island. [MacAusland] also knew the island needed an economic boost in the spring,” said Mary Malavase, a longtime Garden Club member and a co-chair of the 50th annual Daffodil Show at the Nantucket Inn this year. “Back then, the summer season was extremely short. With the investment of planting them, they would be around for over a year, and look at us now.”
In 50 years, the Daffodil Festival has exploded in popularity, from its roots as a collection of daffodils in soda bottles on plastic-lined pool tables at the Boys Club (now the Boys & Girls Club), to hundreds of daffodil entries on display at the flower show this year. The Daffodil Show, which takes place April 24-26, is moving to the Nantucket Inn this year after years at Bartlett’s Farm. In other words, the show has outgrown the farm.
MacAusland’s passion for horticulture was matched by her taste in antique cars. Driving her 1966 Vanden Plas, she would toss wildflower seeds down Milestone and Polpis roads, waiting for them to bloom in the summer, her nieces Natasha Bergreen and Liza Cousins remember. She drove that same antique car down the dirt road to her house, where it would inevitably bottom out. In 1978, she introduced a classic car parade to the festival, with the help of Melva Chesrown and H. Flint and Corky Ranney.
The first parade, from downtown Nantucket to Main Street in ’Sconset included 19 cars, including MacAusland’s Vanden Plas, a 1920s Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost, a 1927 Pontiac and five fire engines. Dozens of cars have stalled or failed to start after being staged for the parade over the years. Longtime festival volunteer and former Sconset Market owner Mark Donato now puts the number of cars in the festival each year at over 100. “Back then, there were a lot of Model T’s in people’s garages, and now those are rare [to see in the parade],” said Donato, who is in charge of the antique car voting process. “There used to be at least eight or 10 of those. Now, muscle cars have gotten old enough that they qualify as antique cars. They’re fan favorites; people love seeing those cars.”
“The tailgates have become very lavish from the days it was lemonade and a few shortbread cookies,” he added. “Now there’s hot food and desserts. I’ve seen a few people that have a private chef back there, so they can just host and talk about their cars.”
While the Daffodil Show and the antique car parade remain the main events of the festival, the weekend has come to encompass an array of activities. The Nantucket Chamber of Commerce now organizes a Daffodil Festival Bazaar (April 24 at the Dreamland) and family events at Children’s Beach. The festival has also provided an economic jolt for shops and restaurants that reopen for the weekend after staying closed for much of the winter. Organizations like the Nantucket Historical Association have also embraced the Daffodil Festival, with the NHA’s annual Flower Power party.
Last fall the Garden Club planted another 50,000 daffodil bulbs at the intersection of Milestone and Polpis roads, which are now coming into bloom in time for the 50th anniversary. “The longevity of it is something people look forward to after a long gray winter,” Malavase said. “It’s the awakening of the island. No matter who you ask, when you ask them what they think about spring, I guarantee you at least 90% of those people say they can’t wait to see the daffodils.”
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