Growing Daffodils

Daffodils, aka Narcissus, is something new to this vegetable gardener. For that matter, until recently the growing of most any flower has not been high on my to-do list My opinion once was "if you can't eat it then why grow it". For several years I attempted to grow roses. The results were marginal at best.

My wife has always been fond of flowers so many would be quick to point that my "flower priorities" should have been a bit higher. Lately things have been moving in that direction. I guess the transition to growing flowers began when the kids moved out. After all, why grow so many vegetables when no one is at home to eat them?

I started growing vegetables in my childhood days while living at home with mom and dad. My Paw Paw, God rest his soul, can take full credit for getting me started. I've had a year-round vegetable garden for most of the last 40 or so years. However, growing flowers is new to me. While there are some things that translate over from vegetable gardening into flower gardening many other things seem to be a bit different. I'm still trying to learn a few things - in particular what best to plant and where and when to plant it.

Last year was my first year to grow Daffodils. I believe I planted about 15 bulbs for my trial run in a back yard flower bed. They did beautifully...So much so that I decide to go with it again and increase my bulb count. So this year I set about 60 bulbs in a different flower bed, one that is clearly visible from the driveway and also somewhat visible from the street.

Last year my bulbs were planted in the flower bed on the north side of the house. The bulbs in the shade of the house flowered later than those in the sun. As the angle of the sun changed it brought more of the plants into the sunlight.. This impacted the timing of flowering bulbs. Logical, right? Well this year I expected a synchronized growth as all bulbs in a new flower bed on the east side of the house receiving the same amount of sunshine. This has not been the case. I still seem to have a wide range of growth from flowering to not yet sprouted stage and all points in-between.

So its only my second year for Daffodils and I'm begginning to add to my "what to do" and "what not to do" learnings. I still have not decided if I should dig up and save the bulbs after the flowering season is over. I dug up a few of the bulbs last year and kept them in the storeroom to replant this year. These seem to be doing well. However, I also had left a few bulbs in the ground last year to see if they would sprout this year - it was about half and half.

One thing for sure -- I need to plant the bulbs a bit closer. I plan to plant the number of bulbs per the recommended by the minimum spacing recommendations on the planting instructions.

All in all the Daffodils are looking good! It's too bad that they only last for a short time.

I think I'm beginning to really get into this flower gardening stuff. ... even if you can't harvest and eat the results.