Brodie – avenue of trees, originally uploaded by Bratach.

Photographer Bratach tells us about this January 23, 2011 image: The daffodils grow all along the wall, and at the moment most of the apparent shoots are not much bigger than a thumbnail.

In my ‘Brodie’ set this is a photo of some of the flowers in bloom taken from the other end of the wall.

www.flickr.com/photos/chools/4972220192/in/set-72157624924233972/

Brodie Castle is in Morayshire in the North East of Scotland. It is now owned by the National Trust for Scotland.

The daffodil collection at Brodie was started many years ago by one of the lairds, and is still quite famous. Many of the flowers grown here have much longer trumpets than more modern varieties, and have more subtle colours.

First Shoots, originally uploaded by Gail Smith.

Artist and poet and photographer Gail Smith sends us these details and thoughts: The bulbs are in the back garden of my father’s house which is in a small fishing town called Eyemouth on the south-east coast of Scotland. The soil looks a bit sandy, doesn’t it? The photo was taken for the theme of ‘New Beginnings’. The daffodil bulbs had lain on the top of the earth for a while following my digging the garden last summer! I replanted them some weeks ago. When I saw the green shoots appear I was fascinated by how something that had appeared ‘dead’ wasn’t. It’s amazing how they push up their green shoots through the dark earth.

This photo was taken on January 6, 2009.