Daffodil event canceled for lack of blooms

April 20, 2012 at 12:00a.m.

YOUNGSTOWN

The daffodil show that had been scheduled for Mill Creek Park’s Fellows Riverside Gardens this weekend has been canceled, but other flowers are in peak bloom, and a free Earth Day walking tour of the gardens will begin at 2 p.m. Sunday.

“Our peak display of daffodils is usually this third week or so of April. This year, because of our very warm winter and extremely warm spring, we had our peak bloom of daffodils March 21 and 22,” explained Keith Kaiser, park horticulture director.

“The ability for them to bring in high-quality blooms to exhibit in a show just isn’t happening now,” he said of daffodil exhibitors.

Eight national American Daffodil Society shows have been canceled for the same reason, he added.

Garden-tour participants are asked to sign in at the information desk in the D.D. and Velma Davis Education and Visitor Center, 123 McKinley Ave., just before Ellen Speicher, assistant horticulture director, leads the leisurely 90-minute walk through the gardens. Speicher said some daffodil blooms still will be visible during that tour.

Viburnums and rhododendrons are in full bloom, she added.

Crab apples, lilacs, dogwoods and redbuds also are in bloom, Kaiser added.

“We’re in the most bloom ever in the year right now,” Kaiser said, adding that the gardens’ normal peak blooming period is about May 10.

Also at 2 p.m. Sunday, Naturalist Emeritus Bill Whitehouse will lead a 3-mile Earth Day hike from the Ford Nature Center, 840 Old Furnace Road. Whitehouse will discuss past Earth Days and the park’s natural and cultural history.