September 30, 1998

I must say I get a rush when those bulb catalogs start arriving in the mail.  I love that glossy paper and the rich four-color pictures.  Although I have never been able to duplicate any of those magnificent scenes, I have been quite satisfied with the results of my wife’s planting efforts.  We learned two important rules early on.   Buy big bulbs and plant "perennial" varieties.

Full-sized bulbs provide a great show the first season because they are all primed up when you get them.  All the parts of the plant- leaves, stems, roots, and flowers - are already in the bulb, along with food and energy reserves.  That's why you want the largest bulbs of whatever variety you’re planting. Big fat healthy bulbs yield huge flowers the following spring.  Young immature bulbs may not flower at all the first couple years and instead build up their strength and size.  Growing conditions have to be very good for them to mature and flower later.

A top grade daffodil bulb is called a #1 grade double nose.  It will have three noses, or offsets, and yield at least three blooms.  A #2 grade double nose (sometimes called "bedding size") will have two offsets and two or more blooms.   A #3 grade round has one nose and one or more flowers.  All grades come in many sizes.  A #1grade double nose bulb for a large trumpet daffodil should be 20-24 cm. (2 ½ -3 inches) in diameter.  The # 2 grade should be 16-20 cm. (2- 2 ½ inches).

Although a good daffodil bulb is no more expensive than most annual plants, gardeners expect them to flower for more than one year.  Most daffodils meet that expectation if planted in the right location.  They prefer full sun, but will tolerate shade for some of the day.  Soil must be well drained. If your site is wet or the soil is heavy clay, a raised bed built above grade will improve the situation.  We plant daffodils in our perennial gardens where their maturing foliage will be obscured by other plants later in the spring.

Most hybrid daffodils easily survive our winters and will perennialize; that is, the planting will expand in size and bloom year after year.  They will not spread to other areas by themselves because they do not set seed.  To help them "spread", you must dig and divide the clumps or plant more new bulbs.

Daffodils, as well as tulips and most other bulbs, look best when planted in clumps or groups, 10 or more bulbs to the clump, rather than in a straight line.  Take a handful of bulbs, scatter them gently over the planting area, and plant them where they fall.  Stay with one color to a clump for best effect.  You can extend the blooming season by planting early, midseason, and late blooming varieties.

After blooming is over, do not remove the foliage until it begins to die back.   Daffodils use that foliage to manufacture food and energy reserves for next year’s show.  Regardless of what some TV gardeners tell you, do not braid the leaves or tie them together with raffia, nylons, or other undergarments.  Do nothing to hinder the bulbs’ efforts to make ready for winter.  In the fall, apply some granular fertilizer over the daffodil bed.  Through the winter it will leach down to the bulbs and they will take it up in the spring.  Granular fertilizer applied in the spring is wasted, since the bulbs will be dormant when it leaches to them.

A good companion bulb for daffodils, and tulips for that matter, is grape hyacinth, or Muscari armeniacum.  The foliage lasts into early summer and reappears in the fall, making it a good marker to locate dormant daffodils and tulips.  Plant big 10 cm. bulbs and you’ll have bright blue flower spikes to complement the pinks, whites, and yellows of other spring bulbs.