by Suzanne Daub
There’s magic that happens on Nantucket in mid-April. The gray days of winter finally give way, the harbor begins to shake off its deep chill, and, seemingly overnight, millions of golden daffodils bloom across our island.
Every year during the last weekend in April, we celebrate Spring by adding to all this natural beauty a variety of fun and whimsical events: a parade of decorated antique cars, a show of elaborately flowered hats and outfits, pups adorned with daffodils, children riding bikes bedecked with blossoms, a tailgate picnic, and a stunning display of blooms at the Nantucket Garden Club’s annual Daffodil Flower Show. Add to all of this plenty of good-natured playfulness, and you have the Nantucket Daffodil Festival. This year, the festival turns 50—a golden anniversary celebrating a half century of fun with engaging events for all.
The story begins with a community member who had a vision and the passion to make it reality. In the fall of 1974, Jean MacAusland, a Nantucket Garden Club member who had extensive gardens here, planted the idea for an island event that would celebrate daffodils and boost the economy during a slim time of year. MacAusland loved the hardy bulbs, and she understood that they thrived in sandy soil, spread naturally, and are distained by hungry deer. On May 2, 1975, the Nantucket Garden Club organized the first Nantucket Daffodil Show, sanctioned by the American Daffodil Society and held at the Boys & Girls Club. It featured 250 entries across nine bloom classifications, and the Nantucket Board of Selectmen officially declared the week of April 28 to May 4 as “Nantucket Daffodil Week.”
Jean MacAusland was just getting started. She continued to encourage widespread plantings, and in 1978, she spearheaded an ambitious project: to plant one million daffodil bulbs across our island. The effort began with 30,000. The following year, MacAusland personally purchased eight tons of daffodil bulbs, which were planted that September. Much of the planting was an island-wide effort done by community members and aided by other Nantucket organizations. MacAusland had small yellow flags made that volunteers used to mark where they stopped so the next participants knew where to continue planting.
Over the years, the Nantucket Garden Club has planted daffodils along the Polpis bike path, the Cisco bike path, and many other locations. When Sankaty Lighthouse was moved, the Sconset Trust did a major planting on the property. PASCON joined the effort in 2007, when board members working on their annual Dreamcatcher event decided daffodil planting would be a wonderful way to honor and recognize the invaluable efforts of the family caregivers and the PASCON patient care volunteers. PASCON has been responsible for planting tens of thousands of daffodil bulbs across the island.
Last year Mary Malavase, island resident, daffodil expert, and long-time member of the Nantucket Garden Club, organized a raffle to raise money to plant 50,000 more daffodil bulbs to commemorate the 50th anniversary. “I was a friend of Jean’s and since I had helped her with previous island plantings, I wanted to not only mark this historic 50th Flower Show, but to remember how one woman’s vision to beautify the island should be remembered and continued. There is nothing happier after a long Grey Lady winter, to see daffodils blooming when we really need a colorful boost. The NGC is very thankful that Dave Champoux, who has done many island bulb projects over the past 45 plus years, continued to do the plantings with his wonderful crew. ”
Since the early 1980s, the Nantucket Garden Club has given daffodil bulbs to island schoolchildren to plant so they can enter their flowers in the next spring’s show. Malavase believes that education and our young people are key to continue the daffodil growing here, and she praises the participation of local schools. “The past 25 plus years have had the assistance of the Nantucket Public Schools Middle School and now the STEM Teacher Annie Webber at the Intermediate School. Each year, Annie prepares a class on classification using a daffodil. The students then package a bulb with it’s name and planting instructions and distribute them to the lower grades and to other island schools. The students are encouraged to bring their flower to school at show time, and a group of wonderful volunteers helps the students prepare their entries. When it’s a school vacation week, as this year, they work with the Boys and Girls Club and other island youth programs to facilitate entries, including flower arrangements. Last year there were over 1300 bulbs distributed.”
This year the Nantucket Daffodil Flower Show will be held in The Nantucket Inn at 1 Miller’s Way. Entries can be brought to the inn on Friday, April 24 from 12 to 6 pm, and on Saturday, April 25 from 7 to 9:30 am. Brent Heath, celebrated horticulturist and owner of Brent and Becky’s Bulbs, will be on hand April 24 from 1 to 5 pm to help participants identify their daffodil varieties and confidently enter them into the show. The show opens to the public Saturday from 2 to 5 pm and on Sunday,April 26 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Admission is free; donations benefit the Garden Club’s Island Daffodil Planting Fund.
In addition to her work with the Nantucket Garden Club, Malavase is an Accredited Daffodil Judge and has been a board member of the American Daffodil Society. Judging the Nantucket show can be different from judging elsewhere: “Judging other shows is always a wonderful experience,” Malavase commented, “You see, depending on the season, daffodils that might not be in bloom for our show. There are early , mid-, and late season daffodils. Flowers grown around the country may show different intensity of color depending on soil conditions… When you read the report from the very first [Nantucket] show, we see flower names that are very common garden varieties. Over time, exhibitors have purchased bulbs from many different hybridizers from around the world. Every year new cultivars are offered. Our local garden shops and the farms have always had bulbs for sale in the fall that are perfect to enter in the show. The American Daffodil society daffodilusa.org also lists bulb sources. When purchasing, remember that every daffodil has a name, which is helpful to know when entering the show.”
Mary also commented on how entering the show can at first be daunting and then develop into a deep passion: “When a first-time exhibitor or a youth exhibitor comes to the show with their first daffodil to enter, it can be overwhelming [seeing] hundreds of daffodils being staged for entry. The exhibitor may be ready to depart quickly: then a Garden Club member, or ADS Judge says… ‘can I help you.’ They show the exhibitor the simple way to enter. After judging, when the first-time entrant visits that show, they may have received a Second or Third Prize for their daffodil—the fear is gone and the individual becomes an annual exhibitor. That’s what a Community Show is all about…We currently have four individuals who have exhibited here for many years and are completing schooling this April to become judges.”
It was in 1978, that the celebration of daffodils on Nantucket began to grow beyond the flower show. Jean MacAusland joined forces with H. Flint & Corky Ranney and Melva Chesrown to organize an antique car parade. That first year, 19 cars participated in the “First Annual Nantucket Garden Club Vintage Motor Car Outing,” including a dashing 1920s Rolls Royce Silver Ghost and Jean MacAusland’s classic Rolls Royce. Jean’s culinary background (she and her husband Earle founded Gourmet magazine) inspired her to plan a tailgate picnic to be held after the parade.
The parade’s popularity grew quickly. By 1983, 80 antique cars had registered and 40 more crashed the parade, making the procession so long that the first car looped back around right behind the last. The following year, the Nantucket Island Chamber of Commerce, now in charge of Daffodil Festival activities (except for the Nantucket Garden Club’s Daffodil Show), had to cap the number of antique cars in the parade.
For 2026, dozens of decorated vintage vehicles will line up on Main Street at 9:30 am for festival goers to view up-close. “People’s Choice” ballots will be available to all outside the Chamber office at Zero Main Street. At noon the parade begins: drivers in creative garb that compliments the adornments on their cars, wind through town before heading out Milestone Road to Siasconset for the tailgate picnic.
While the Daffodil Flower Show and the Antique Car Parade are the centerpieces of Daffodil Festival weekend, there are activities for all ages. Free events through the day on Saturday, April 25 at Children’s Beach include a photogenic Daffy Hat Pageant open to men, women, and children, a Children’s Bike Parade featuring bicycles, wagons, skateboards, and baby carriages adorned with daffodils, and NiSHA’s (Nantucket Safe Harbor for Animals) Daffy Dog Parade with awards for the most dapper canine. In between these events at Children’s Beach, the Nantucket Chamber of Commerce has arranged for a NanPuppets show and a Daffodil Magic Show. The Pine Woods Morris Men usually add music and dance to the fun at Children’s Beach and will perform at other locations around the island on Saturday.
After fifty years, the Nantucket Daffodil Festival is proof that the best traditions are the ones that blend love of community with a cheerful willingness to be lighthearted and a little silly. There are few places in the world where you can watch a 1920s Roadster decorated in daffodils roll past a crowd of people in flower hats and finery, cheered on by ribbon-wearing dogs, on an island carpeted in millions of blooms. Nantucket is one of them.
Mary Malavase expressed it perfectly: “When you plant bulbs in the fall, sometimes you tend to forget them, and, magically, when you are emerging from a very cold and stormy winter, the daffodils surprise us and appear just when we need to know winter is finally past.”