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It's almost time to order and plant bulbs to bloom in your garden next spring. Daffodils grow at historic sites throughout the south, long after the gardeners who planted them are gone. Here I will discuss daffodils and how and why to plant them.
The best way to plant daffodils is by the bushel. If you have an orchard of deciduous fruit or nut trees or a sort of wild place that gets at least 6 hours of full sun and does not need to be mowed constantly, that would be the perfect place to plant a few bushels of daffodils. Get the children, or borrow some from the neighbor. Let them throw the daffodils as naturalistically as they can. Just make sure that the bulbs are at least 6 inches apart and arranged in a random pattern. Then get a bulb augur and fit it to your cordless drill. Zap. Zap. Drill the holes about 8 inches deep. Drop in the bulb with the pointed end up, seat it firmly in the hole with a twist, then kick in the dirt you took out and tread the dirt firmly back in the hole. Preferably, all of this will take place within a day of a good drenching rain. If you are planting early, middle, and late varieties, repeat this process for each type you plant. [1]
Early, middle, and late varieties can be selected to provide a show for two months or more in the early Spring. Some vendors sell a naturalizers mix, that will provide a display of early to late season daffodils. [2] Here in Alabama, the daffodil season starts in February, with paperwhites, and ends about mid-May with the poets daffodils.
If you don’t have the means to plant a few acres of your place to daffodils, it's all right to plant just a few in borders or clumps here and there in the flower beds. Just don’t plant them in a straight row, like soldiers standing at attention. Daffodils need excellent drainage, and they need to be left alone, away from mowing machines. Their foliage needs to ripen until late summer in order to feed the bulbs for the following year's blooms. Their only real enemy is the mowing machine. Squirrels don’t like them, since they contain a trace of arsenic. Squirrels will, however, plant trees in the daffodil fields making a weedy mess if the seedling trees are not grubbed out periodically.
Other spring bulbs, such as camassia, chinodoxa, crocus, wood hyacinth (Hyacinthoides hispanica), ixiolirion, muscari, or squill, can be inter-planted in drifts with the daylilies. Some companion plants for daffodils are discussed in this thread.
In old Southern gardens the daffodils were over- planted with daylilies such as Kwanso daylilies, (Hemerocallis fulva 'Kwanso' (photo center, below) to hide the ripening foliage. Early summer bulbs, such as Allium caeruleum (right, below), can be used to complement the Kwanso daylilies. One of my favorite "blues" to go with daffodils is Camassia quamash (left, below.) This is Camassia scilloidoes, wild hyacinth, growing wild in Scott, Co. Ky.
Some daffodils, especially the Tazetta daffodils, or paperwhites, can be forced into bloom as indoor flowers in the winter. [3] Many of them have a very unpleasant odor that can bring tears to your eyes. In this thread is a list of paper white cultivars with a less obnoxious odor.
The American daffodil Society has classified daffodils or Narcissus into 13 divisions: (1) trumpet, (2) large or long cupped, (3) small cupped, (4) double, (5) tiandrus, (6) cyclamineus, (7) jonquilla, (8) tazetta, (9) poeticus, (10) bulbocodium, "hoop petticoat form", (11) split cupped, (12) miscellaneous, and (13) species and wild daffodils. [4]
Left to right these are 'King Alfred' (Trumpet Narcissus), 'Rip Van Winkle' (Double Narcissus), 'Thali'a (Triandus Narcissus), Paperwhite 'Ziva' (Tazetta Narcissus), Narcissus cyclamineus 'Jetfire', Narcissus 'Poeticus', and Narcissus bulbocodium 'Obesus'.
The miniature daffodils are tiny versions of the 13 main divisions. They can be planted in rock gardens, children’s gardens, or in courtyard pots.
Miniature N.cyclamineus 'Tête-à-Tête', N. jonquilla 'Pipet', N. cyclamineus 'February Gold', N. triandrus 'Hawera', N. trumpet 'Topolino', and N. cyclamineus 'Toto'.
So, why plant daffodils? They invite you to explore the entire genre of spring blooming bulbs. You can't plant just one. You need companions. And, you need to extend the season. When you plant daffodils you are planting for your children, and for their grandchildren. Because daffodils, like diamonds, are forever.
I am a retired archeologist and curator of an historic house museum. I live in Greensboro, Alabama, a small rural historic Southern town, with my two dogs, a rabbit and (by recent count) two cats. I am upgrading a 100 year old neoclassic house and clearing and planting my two-and-one-half acre property. Of plants, I love roses best of all.
Posted by lena9221 (from Westland, MI) on June 16, 2008 at 8:53 AM:
I let my flowerbed go for a couple of years during my husbands illness. This year we had to turn all of the dirt and sift it to rid the bed of weeds. So, I had to pull my daffodils. They were mostly died back, so the bulbs should be viable for blooming next year. I let them sit till the leaves were brown.
My question is...now that the beds are cleaned out and fixed, when should I put the bulbs back in (zone 5)? Should I wait till fall? How long shoud they be set out for drying...just till the dirt on them dries up? I don't know what variety they are. They bloom while the snow is still on the ground. Usually mid-March.
Thank you,
Lena
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Posted by gloria125 (from Greensboro, AL) on June 16, 2008 at 9:07 AM:
Lena: Its hard for me to judge because its so hot here.
I would put them in the coolest shadiest place you can find to dry, then replant them in the fall.
Good luck. That sounds like a major job - redoing those beds!
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Subject: starting our flower garden.
Posted by ryleflower (from Vista, CA) on September 27, 2007 at 11:33 AM:
Thank you so much for the helpful tips on planting Daffodils, my 4 yr old daughter is very excited to start her garden and today we start with rip van winkle daffodills. Keep the good info coming...........
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Posted by gloria125 (from Greensboro, AL) on September 27, 2007 at 12:02 PM:
It is so great to get kids involved, because with daffodils its some thing that they can take with them forever. Even take some divisions and plant some in their own garden as a wedding present.
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Subject: Thanks
Posted by redunicorn (from Glen Ellyn, IL) on September 24, 2007 at 12:56 PM:
Daffodils are one of my favorite flowers. I had an artist carve them into our headboard. I didn't know there were so many varieties. Thanks for enlightening me.
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Subject: Daffodils
Posted by Annepaola (from Manahawkin, NJ) on September 24, 2007 at 10:48 AM:
I agree, everyone should plant daffs! Last Christmas we had Early Sensation in full bloom after a rather mild start to the winter, and we had some blooming well into May - a good 4 plus months. We are in NJ - zone 7, 5 miles from the ocean.
How much shade will daffodils tolerate and still bloom?
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Posted by gloria125 (from Greensboro, AL) on September 24, 2007 at 12:02 PM:
The critical thing seems to be winter sun. They do very well under a deciduous orchard. Here they are planted under pecan trees. What does happen in a shadier location is that the foliage takes a very long time to ripen in the summer. It is really a struggle to keep people off who want to mow away the foliage, "because it looks bad".
So I think it is important to plant a companion series that will hide the foliage while it ripens. Here we had daylilies. Someone in the bulb forum suggested lilies. I think camassias followed by daylilies & tiger lilies would be great. That would take you into late summer.
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Posted by ViburnumValley (from Scott County, KY) on October 3, 2007 at 6:51 PM:
I'd add to the advice from gloria:
Planted under deciduous trees, Narcissus will live, grow, and bloom for a long time. As shade increases, blooms will be reduced or maybe not at all.
At such time, dig the bulbs up and move them to a sunnier place. There really isn't a wrong answer for the light requirement under deciduous canopy, since the daffodils usually start well before trees leaf out.
I grew up on the 3.5 acre property of an antebellum home in KY. There were lines of daffodils on the grounds which probably traced the outlines of some long ago garden design, though I didn't appreciate that then. As I grew in gardening and horticulture and had places to grow my own bulbs, my mother gifted me several large clumps of these oldtimers that had plenty of foliage every year (under the uncompromising canopy of common hackberries) but had ceased blooming long ago.
I divided these clumps of bulbs; each bulb was pretty small compared the monster King Alfred trumpet-style daffodils I was used to handling. I ended up with about 25 separate planting areas with 10 or so bulbs per wide hole.
The following year, every clump had some blooms. Now (15 or so years hence) every clump blooms prolifically. Oh, and these are planted to the northeast side of a mature tree line (hackberry, walnut, hickory), where they are well-shaded after the trees leaf out and I don't bother to mow until June or later.
gloria:
Mighty fine looking Camassia there; wish I could grow some like that.
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Posted by gloria125 (from Greensboro, AL) on October 3, 2007 at 7:41 PM:
VV: I thought you did grow those Camassia. The daffodils here are planted in a pecan orchard and that seems to give them plenty of sun exposure to bloom. The only trouble they have is the city mowing them away periodically. Then there are no flowers for a couple of years.
Good to hear from you.
gloria
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Subject: Great Article, Thank You!
Posted by heathrjoy (from Johnsonburg, PA) on September 19, 2007 at 1:07 AM:
Gloria,
What an informative article and beautiful pics! I'd never heard of a bulb augur before, but I think I'll be getting one. I always wondered how folks planted 100's of bulbs. I can just envision the Daffs around my Apple, Plum and Pear trees next spring.
I've also fallen in love with the pic of Paperwhite 'Ziva' (Tazetta Narcissus) and decided I *must* have some. If DH disagrees I'll just tell him that "daffodils, like diamonds, are forever." I love that line!
Thanks again!
Heather
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Posted by critterologist (from Frederick, MD) on September 19, 2007 at 8:14 AM:
What an informative & encouraging article! I just ordered a couple hundred more daffodils -- not quite a bushel, but I'm sure I've planted a bushel or two altogether out there!
The bulb augers seem to work best in relatively loose soil. Maybe my drill simply lacked power, but it hardly made a dent in the clay of an unamended area of my hard. I've switched to digging a larger hole and planting clumps of 5 to 15 (still spaced 4 to 6 inches apart). I've also tried the random method of placing bulbs by throwing them, but I can never find them all to plant them! LOL Maybe I need to hit them with a little florescent pink landscape paint first....
Your type of soil may also affect how deep you plant the bulbs. In the dense clay I have here, bulbs planted 8 inches deep would never see the light of day... I dig my hole only about twice as deep as the diameter of the bulb, but most of my daffs are in areas that get mulched for winter protection.
And by all means, when you're ordering daffs, get some "little bulbs" to plant with them. They can go right on top of the daffs in the same hole. Using the 2 to 3 times the diameter of the bulb rule for depth means a 1 inch crocus bulb needs just an inch or two of soil covering it. :-)
Thanks for a great article, with lots of inspiring photos!
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Posted by gloria125 (from Greensboro, AL) on September 19, 2007 at 9:50 AM:
critter. Are you putting something in the hole to help with drainage? So many grey haired ladies have told me how their Brownie Scout group helped plant the daffodils at the historic house here. I think the trick to keeping them found was to keep a Brownie in each area until the "diggers" got around to the entire space that was being planted.
Clay soil can be a real challenge. Thanks for your input.
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Posted by critterologist (from Frederick, MD) on September 19, 2007 at 10:59 AM:
Most of my bulbs get planted into areas that have been amended with good compost, which helps. I also give a little sprinkle of polymer moisture crystals into the hole for nearly everything that I plant, including bulbs... they work to soak up extra water in wet soil, also, so they're good for soil that could use a little extra drainage. But even amended clay is still denser and moister than sandy loam. :-)
I generally use the rule of thumb that bulbs should be planted 2 to 3 times as deep as their diameter, so I've never planted anything as deep as 8 inches except some really enormous "Naked Lady" bulbs. My mom planted some daffs 6 to 8 inches deep when she first moved to Pittsburgh (also clay based soil), and she never saw them again. I think how deep to plant may vary with zone as well as with soil... in the south, maybe they need to be a bit deeper so they stay a little cooler. For me, 4 to 6 inches deep works fine for daffodils.
I think if I had a Brownie troop on hand, I could keep track of a bushel of tossed-around bulbs! I love that image of a troop of giggling girls running around an old estate, helping to place and plant the bulbs.
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Posted by gloria125 (from Greensboro, AL) on September 19, 2007 at 11:18 AM:
The daffodil bulbs (and daylily cover) was planted in 1948. When I saw those Brownies, they were still giggling but they were 75 years old.
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Posted by critterologist (from Frederick, MD) on September 19, 2007 at 11:20 AM:
yet another wonderful image!
:-)
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Posted by Dea (from Frederick, MD) on September 19, 2007 at 2:39 PM:
Great article and wonderful photos!
First thing we did when we moved here was to plant daffs - of all kinds and varieties. 6 years later (a short time) they still come up like clockwork and we just love them.
Thanks :)
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Posted by fancyvan (from Calgary, AB) on September 19, 2007 at 2:44 PM:
I've been working on a Daffodil 'border' along the lower side of a curve or rock across my front garden, over the years have planted several hundred I guess - I just bought a mixed bag of 50 or so every fall.I plant by digging out a large hole and putting in a
5-6 bulbs and then covering, beats digging individual holes. Mine go about 6 inchs deep.
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Posted by Islandshari (from Kwajalein
(Marshall Islands)) on September 19, 2007 at 4:28 PM:
Enjoyed your article very much Gloria! I do miss my daffs come February and March.
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Posted by gloria125 (from Greensboro, AL) on September 19, 2007 at 5:02 PM:
Islandshari: Don't daffodils grow on the islands?
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Posted by Islandshari (from Kwajalein
(Marshall Islands)) on September 19, 2007 at 6:14 PM:
No bulbs that need that bit of freeze can grow here....Although one year I did start some columbine and then put it in the restaurant freezer for a bit....they did well for me for a short time, but our weather is too extreme for most bulbs. More's the pity.
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Posted by KyWoods (from Melbourne, KY) on September 19, 2007 at 7:55 PM:
What? Squirrels won't eat 'em? Gotta have 'em, then!!! Thanks!
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Posted by peony01 (from Prattville, AL) on September 19, 2007 at 7:56 PM:
Gloria, Thanks for the great article. I've done volunteer work at Lanark (Home of the Alabama Wildlife Federation) where we planted 5,000 or so a year. We planted them in clumps, in what we called "swooshes) (sort of flowing things that look like water running through the pine trees). They are really beautiful in the spring. On a negative note, I am concerned about our drought. Thanks.
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Posted by gloria125 (from Greensboro, AL) on September 19, 2007 at 7:58 PM:
Some daffodils are from the mediteranean area. They need excellent drainage. Tulips wont grow here because they need a chill but I didn't think it was a requirement for daffs.
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Posted by gloria125 (from Greensboro, AL) on September 19, 2007 at 8:01 PM:
peony: My 5000 a year! That must be quite a sight to see.
Thanks everyone for your comments.
gloria
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Posted by critterologist (from Frederick, MD) on September 19, 2007 at 8:05 PM:
Bleek (of eflowergardens.com) recently recommended Narc. 'Saint Keverne' [HYPERLINK@davesgarden.com] to me as a good, early yellow daffodil. In looking it up, I discovered it's said to be one of the best daffs for the south... you might just ask Bleek how he thinks it would fare in the Marshall Islands!
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Posted by Cordeledawg (from Cordele, GA) on September 19, 2007 at 9:06 PM:
Great article, Gloria. You have gotten me excited about the planting more bulbs!
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Posted by Islandshari (from Kwajalein
(Marshall Islands)) on September 19, 2007 at 9:16 PM:
Thanks Jill, I'll check.(Did you see.? No "how to's in my Plumie article...it just sort of followed a different tangent...)
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Posted by critterologist (from Frederick, MD) on September 19, 2007 at 10:06 PM:
I *loved* your plumie article! I'm hoping my lone plumie keeps growing and makes it through the winter... I'm trying to get some "how to" experience!
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Posted by Islandshari (from Kwajalein
(Marshall Islands)) on September 19, 2007 at 10:22 PM:
Just don't let it get cold, and it should be fine...then in the spring you can show us all your wonderful blossoms!
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Posted by gloria125 (from Greensboro, AL) on September 20, 2007 at 7:41 AM:
Islandshari: You must be able to grow so many things that we can't grow. But you probably could force some mini daffs on a patio --just for nostalgia's sake.
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Posted by Islandshari (from Kwajalein
(Marshall Islands)) on September 20, 2007 at 9:21 PM:
I have thought about it, Gloria. But as you said, they are best when you can see hundreds at a time! Thanks for the trip down memory lane!
