As the earliest flowering daffodil varieties appear in our gardens, now is the time to remember some important care for these cheerful bulb blooms, as well as some bits of information on other bulb varieties to consider to add and order later this season.
A key practice to improve the health and longevity of a bulbs’ bloom is to allow the daffodil leaves to gradually die back, as much as 6-to-8 weeks after the bulb is done flowering.
It pains bulb experts and horticulturalists to see a bulb’s leaves cut back RIGHT as the plant is done flowering, or for the public to spend unnecessary time ‘tying back’ the leaves. Those leaves are feeding next year’s luminous blooms, and top gardeners know that a slightly unkempt look of messy bulb leaves on the garden floor is essential to a show-stopping spring display, for the following year.
Another recommendation for bulb health and vitality is to fertilize with a low-nitrogen fertilizer when the bulbs are ABOUT to flower, and immediately AFTER they have flowered, each spring or flowering, season. Many will add fertilizer to the bulb AS it is installed, in the bottom of the hole, but this is wasteful and, possibly, harmful to the health of the bulb. Remember, a bulb has all the food storage it needs as it is installed in the ground, and as British bulb expert, Johnny Walkers notes, “With a year-one bulb installed, you are guaranteed your flower the next spring.”
Another helpful reminder from Container Gardening expert, Claus Dalby, is to install daffodil bulbs EARLY in the Fall – in mid to late September, because they need time to form a good root network. The other bulbs, such as Tulips, Alliums, Hyacinths, Crocus and Scilla, can be installed later in the Fall, and they are less reliant on an established root network. (NOTE: mark your calendars now, for bulb ordering in July and August of this year).
If your daffodil bulbs were installed years ago, and your daffodils are not performing or have stopped flowering, it’s important to know that one can rescue a daffodil and help it flower again. The bulb can be revived with adequate amended soil at its roots, and with a feeding of low-nitrogen fertilizer and with an open, sunny location in the garden. Such older, weaker-flowering daffodil bulbs often suffer from over-crowding (underground) or from a lack of nutrients. Bulb experts recommend transplanting these weaker bulbs to a new spot in the yard, with amended soil in the garden hole, bulb fertilizer installed as the bulb pokes through the ground (the following spring), ensuring the new location has adequate sunlight; with these helpful steps, your weak-flowering daffodil bulbs will grow into a more robust one, with flowering re-appearing in a year or two.
Recommendation: Search for your brand’s high quality organic bulb fertilizer, today, for application this spring.
North Shore Plant Club
