I plant hundreds of daffodils every autumn, and the reason is more than just their looks

Screen printer Hannah Carvell is one of Ideal Home's new Open House contributors, sharing her thoughts on colourful home design for a creative family to live in. See the rest of her articles here.

For the last three birthdays I've celebrated since moving to Somerset, I've asked my family for the same thing, daffodil bulbs. Not a carefully chosen little packet from the garden centre, but enormous sacks of them from our local farm shop. It's become something of a tradition, and one I have no intention of giving up any time soon.

I love planting them almost as much as I love seeing them appear. There is very little planning involved. I scatter them along the lawn and hedgerows around our house, poke a few into pots and generally find a home for them wherever I can. Then, once the evenings draw in and our attention turns to Halloween, Christmas and everything else life has to throw at us, I more or less forget about them.

Until spring, that is, when those first little green shoots begin to appear. There is something so satisfying about watching a garden slowly come back to life. Before long, our home is surrounded by cheerful yellow daffodils, and I can start picking a few to bring indoors. They brighten up a windowsill or kitchen table in an instant, and somehow make the prospect of longer, warmer days feel a little more real.

Of course, the wonderful thing about daffodils is that they return year after year. I'm now three years into my bulb-planting tradition, with hundreds planted and absolutely no plans to stop. If anything, I seem to find room for more every autumn.

This year, I'm considering planting a few around our chicken field, although I'm not entirely convinced this is a sensible gardening decision. I once tried planting wild strawberries there, having relocated them during our first year in the house, only for the chickens to scratch them up. A pumpkin plant I'd been tending for weeks this spring, growing out of an old chimney nearby, was mysteriously demolished overnight. I suspect a goose was responsible for that particular crime.

I had heard that chickens enjoy marigold petals, although my attempts to grow them along the fence have so far been futile. I'm beginning to think that planting anything in a chicken field is a fool's game. Still, a gardener has to remain optimistic. I'm currently attempting to sneak some hollyhocks along the fence, and so far, they seem to be holding their own. Perhaps the daffodils stand a chance after all.

Recently, I watched a gardener I enjoy following on Instagram, Anya, talking about her own field of daffodils. The bulbs had been a gift from her late mother-in-law, and years late as they continue to return each spring they bring back happy memories of someone she loved.

I thought that was such a beautiful idea: planting something that becomes a legacy. A small, living reminder of a person, a moment or a particular chapter in your life, quietly returning each year. You might not be there to see every single flower, but the joy you planted continues to grow, bringing happiness to the people who come after you.

There is something rather lovely about the thought that a garden can hold memories in this way. A bulb planted on an ordinary autumn afternoon might become something you look forward to for decades and of course there is the simple pleasure of having something beautiful to look at after the long, cold months of winter.

Even buying one of those £1 bunches of daffodils from the supermarket during my weekly food shop feels significant (they always pup up at the checkouts long before mine appear from the ground). I always think of them as a little marker of the changing seasons: a sign that we're all beginning to emerge from hibernation, open the windows a little more often and I start thinking about sowing seeds again.

I try to add something new to the garden each year, alongside my ever-growing collection of daffodils. Last winter, I treated myself to a handful of tiny snowdrop bulbs I'd found in the sale. I can't even remember exactly where I planted them now, so I'll have to wait and see whether they appear. This year, I might try crocuses, I love a splash of colour, particularly when it arrives while the days are still short and the garden feels a little bare.

Perhaps that's part of the appeal of planting bulbs. There is an element of surprise to it all. You tuck something into the earth, often on a grey afternoon when spring feels a very long way off, and then get on with everything else. Months later, just when you need it most, something begins to grow.

There's a particular pleasure in discovering a flower you had almost forgotten you'd planted, I think I love seeing the old ones return just as much. Those familiar yellow heads appearing in the same places as last year, reminding me of previous springs and all the little moments in between.

So, this birthday, I suspect I'll be asking for another enormous sack of daffodil bulbs. I'll scatter them wherever I can find a little space, probably plant a few somewhere the chickens will inevitably object to, and then forget all about them until spring comes around again. After all, you can never really have too many daffodils.

And there's something rather wonderful about planting a little happiness now, knowing that it will come back to find you.