Every spring morning, as the first rays of sunlight dance across Dunbarton, Donna Dunn is treated to a vibrant sea of yellow daffodils unfurling before her eyes.

It’s a sight that fills her heart with indescribable joy, a gift that few are fortunate enough to witness.

Her love for these blooms began when she first laid eyes on a small patch of daffodils behind an old mansion while she was growing up in Dover. Year after year, she watched them blossom in spring when the snow melted away and the ground began to warm up.

“I just admire their tenacity,” said Dunn, gazing at the field outside her home where at least 10,000 bulbs in the ground are now in full bloom. “And, I said, someday I’m going to have a daffodil field because you plant some and if you’re in the right conditions, they will literally come back for decades and decades and decades.”

But Dunn’s love for daffodils didn’t stop there. For the town’s 250th anniversary in 2015, she decided to paint the town yellow with these flowers.

With the town’s garden club in 2004, she took it up as a challenge to plant 100,000 daffodils in time for Dunbarton’s milestone year. It began with hand tools to dig holes for the bulbs, but after five years, men joined the club and used power tools to speed up the process, said Dunn.

During the years of planting, Dunn had ordered hazmat suits to protect everyone from poison ivy, while also coming up with creative methods for planting flowers, earning her the nickname “Daffy Donna.”

By 2014, 100,000 daffodils were planted and the community pitched in too. The variety of daffodils planted across town is named after Dunbarton’s historical figures – General John Stark, Molly Stark, Caleb Stark, Scipio Page – each bloom a living homage to the past.

This year marks the “Daffodils of Dunbarton” project’s 20th anniversary with the local garden club having a sale for daffodil bulbs.

“If you live in Dunbarton, you have to have daffodils,” said Dunn.

Many years ago, on a Sunday morning, she remembers a group of leather-clad bikers with a tough exterior pausing to admire the vibrant mix of delicate daffodils blooming on her field along Gorham Pond Road.

“I guess everyone likes flowers, easy flowers,” Dunn said, recalling that day. “There really isn’t anything like a good old-fashioned daffodil for longevity and ease of care.”

Dunn’s field is open to anyone to make memories among the daffodils.

“What makes you put a smile on your face in the spring like daffodils popping up?” she said.