Nice selection Neal.

Ice Follies


Tete a Tete


Jetfire


clumps

Beautiful daffodils!

I planted these dutch iris bulbs on 02-02-15, they were labeled 'Blue'. I don't understand if that is actually a variety or a marketing name. Best I can tell it is a dutch iris used by florist for forcing, odd it would be sold at Lowe's as a garden variety plant. Anyone know anything about this? Don't know what to put my photos under other than generic. By the way my camera, as malfunctioning as it is, actually did a great job on picking up the true colors, showing the difference in the blue and the purple. That is often not the case. My camera has decided it will only take pictures at full zoom or no zoom at all, nothing in between.


I had my first 'Indian Chief' Iris bloom open today.

Edited: Sorry I just noticed this thread is about Daffodils.

Dutch Iris make wonderful garden plants. Looks like yours was just a no ID variety. Maybe selling off whatever they had an excess of. No matter, it is still pretty.

I wish Dutch Iris were perennial here, I rarely have any return a 2nd year. Larry, they should return well in your zone.

Precocious and Irene Copeland


Mrs. Langtry and Palmares

Hey, my first daffodil bloom of the year opened today. Hurray!

Congrats, Rita! Spring has finally reached you!

I have been on a quest for good white Daffodils, particularly early flowering and trumpet varieties. There are quite a few good ones for mid to late spring, but not a lot of early bloomers. And I find it odd that Mount Hood is the only one commonly sold. This quest lead me to order some from Old House Gardens. Beersheba has been opening the last couple of days, and what a beauty!

I really like that one.

Afew years ago I bought a white daff mix from Scheepers but I really don't remember much about what blooms from it.

Ara, Chromacolor, and Tickled Pinkeen. Ara has made a great come back after dwindling away for a few years, but has responded well to a little tlc. I love the long trumpet, such an elegant look.


Minnow, then Fortissimo and Mount Hood, and a garden shot.

Rita, I tried a mix from Van Engelen once, and didn't really care for it. The blend wasn't balanced, and many were novelty types. I have heard that mixtures are usually seedlings that don't make the cut for introduction, and my experience makes me think that is true. But Beersheeba is such an elegant beauty, and OHG says it multiplies well- fingers crossed! Another quality I love about it is that it opens solid ivory-white, no waiting for the yellow cup to mature to white.

gemini_sage said:Rita, I tried a mix from Van Engelen once, and didn't really care for it. The blend wasn't balanced, and many were novelty types. I have heard that mixtures are usually seedlings that don't make the cut for introduction, and my experience makes me think that is true. But Beersheeba is such an elegant beauty, and OHG says it multiplies well- fingers crossed! Another quality I love about it is that it opens solid ivory-white, no waiting for the yellow cup to mature to white.

Yes, I was underwhelmed and dissapointed in that mix. But not such a terrible thing in the scheme of things because there are lots of other daffs in the garden. Not many whites though. Yours is exceptionally pretty.

gemini_sage,
What type of special care do you give to get a daff to make a comeback? Water, fertilizer, ?

Most Daffs will hang in there, even with neglect. However there are some hybrids that will perform well in a tended garden, but aren't suited to naturalizing, and will dwindle with too much competition from grasses and weeds. I neglected my gardens horribly for a couple of years, and weeds as well as encroaching shade caused the dwindling of Ara. Once I got the area well weeded, and removed the tree that was shading the area, they have bounced back on their own.

I have another variety that is dwindling in a kept garden space. Its a yellow/pink bicolor called Billy Graham, and I believe its just a weak variety. My plan is to dig them after the foliage yellows, and before replanting I'll amend with compost and work in some bone meal.

gemini_sage said:
If you have a lot of Daffodils to thin, and don't mind losing a few bulbs, an easy way is to spear a clump in a few places with a fork or spade, and wiggle it back and forth. You'll definitely lose a few bulbs doing this, but I found by accident a few years ago, that it does the job re-invigorating old clumps that had stopped blooming as heavily.

By the time of die-back my beds are so full that I rarely tramp through them to thin my clumps, so when would be the best time to do this?

No blooms here yet, but I'm starting to see a few buds.

I like to do it when the foliage is yellowing, but it is sometimes like a game of twister, LOL. I got the idea from a field near a previous home. I saw lots of Daffodil foliage in spots, but no blooms. One year they plowed and sowed a cover crop, and the next year the field was full of blooms.

Thanks Neal.

This may be why the daffs on old homesteads still bloom; the deer, squirrels and other critters don't eat them, but they probably do disturb them while looking for other edibles.

Out of curiosity, have you ever divided/disturbed before bloom?

Oh yes, I've disturbed them or had to move them before bloom. With a good root ball with soil attached, they didn't suffer much, but were floppy that season. The next year they were fine. There have been times I couldn't get the root ball, or had to separate them, and those went dormant prematurely, and didn't bloom the next year. After that they did recover and were fine.

So you lost two seasons of bloom from early separation? That's definitely reason enough to wait.