How many weeks of daffodil bloom do you have in your garden? If less than four, something is radically wrong with your planting.
If you select types and varieties with reasonable care, you should have daffodils to enjoy for two months or even longer.
The trick to having a longer daffodil flowering season is a simple one. In a nutshell, it is this familiarity first with the different types and let concern about varieties conic later.
Most of the modern, large-flowered varieties flower for a comparatively short time. To extend the blooming season, it is necessary to add some of the daffodil species and hybrids of species to your gardens.
In general, these have much smaller flowers and they lack the color range that plant breeders have developed in the large-flowered varieties.
Nevertheless, they hold for most gardeners a fascination all their own.
They are especially good subjects for the rock garden or the top of a wall or a terrace where their small-scale loveliness may be observed at close range.
Moreover, despite their small stature, they withstand spring storms well and remain in good condition for an exceptionally long time.
Various Daffodils Species
Early-flowering “little” daffodils include the species:
- Narcissus bulbocodium conspicuus
- Narcissus jonquilla simplex
- Narcissus triandrus albus
All of these are like miniatures when compared to the horticultural types which fill the color pages of bulb catalogs and are so much more familiar to gardeners.
For this reason, the little daffodils should be planted in small irregular groups by themselves rather than with the tall, large-flowered types on the border.
A rock garden is an ideal place to plant them but if this is lacking, they may be planted along the top of a wall or against individual rocks.
Now there are available hybrid forms of these little daffodils in which the characteristics of the species are evident.
By including these in your plantings, along with the kinds more commonly grown, you not only extend the daffodil season at both ends but also add immeasurably to the interest of the garden by varying the flower forms and sizes.
And to the flower arranger, also, they will be a constant and inexhaustible source of pleasure.
And—just in case at this point you feel that all these floral gems sound enticing but are way beyond your garden budget—let me emphasize the fact that daffodils are just about the least expensive of all spring garden flowers.
Nothing bothers them; they thrive under a wide range of soils and conditions, and they require no winter mulching or other protection.
In addition, they cost little to start with: all but the newest or rarest varieties may be had for 150 to 25¢ per bulb or $1.50 to $2.50 per dozen.
Three bulbs of a variety will give you a good start, as they’ll provide 3 to 6 blooms the first spring after planting and dozens within 3 or 4 years.
We have never bought more than a dozen bulbs of a variety, and frequently only 6 or 3, and we now have them by the thousands.
To plan a long, full-bodied season of bloom, the gardener may well consider the many types and varieties of daffodils as belonging to the following groups, which flower in succession.
Of course, there will be some overlapping of varieties due to varying locations and seasonal conditions.
Here in southern New York, our daffodils start blooming from mid-March to early April and continue through to mid- or late May.
The blooming date of a single variety may vary ten days or more, depending upon whether the planting is located in a very sheltered sunny spot or an exposed shaded one.
Daffodil Species And Their Hybrids
Of the hybrids, the earliest are the following:
- FEBRUARY GOLD
- MARCH SUNSHINE
- PEEPING TOM
These are all cyclamineus hybrids.
Following them are the jonquilla hybrids, such as:
- GOLDEN SCEPTER
- GOLDEN PERFECTION
- LANARTH
- TREVITHIAN
The latter, which is our favorite, is very tall and vigorous and holds its own in the mixed border.
Slightly later are the triandrus hybrids such as:
- SNOWBIRD
- AGNES HARVEY
- THALIA
- MOONSHINE
Giant Trumpets
Of the varieties that have been developed from the species through decades of plant breeding, the giant trumpets are the earliest to bloom.
The earliest blooming of the varieties that we have is ADA FINCH, a lovely white that blooms only a few days later than FEBRUARY GOLD.
AEROLITE, yellow, and SPRING GLORY, a bicolor, are other very early ones.
KING ALFRED, long the largest-flowering giant trumpet, has been replaced by ADVENTURE and UNSURPASSABLE, both quite similar to KING ALFRED but more gracefully formed.
Other favorites of ours in the trumpet division are PRESIDENT LEBRUN and SILVA NITE, bicolors.
BEERSHEBA and the very early LA VESTALS, white; MOUNT HOOD, the largest of the whites; and, of course, MRS. R. O. BACKHOUSE and PINK FAVORITE, two of the new “pink” trumpets.
Large, Small-Cupped Daffodils
Following on the heels of the giant trumpets and, in the case of some varieties, overlapping them, come the medium trumpets.
In this group, the central portion of the flower—the “cup”, “crown” or “eye”—is shorter than the outer row of petals, or, more correctly, the perianth segments.
It is in these two divisions that the plant breeders have been particularly busy recently, developing varieties of startling beauty, with wide, flaring, and frequently daintily frilled centers of brilliant orange, tangerine, copper, and apricot, contrasting boldly with their yellow, lemon, or pure white background petals.
Popular among the yellow large-cupped varieties are:
- FORTUNE
- GOLDEN PEDESTAL
- SCARLET ELEGANCE (yellow)
Popular among the bicolor large-cupped varieties are:
- OHN EVELYN
- DAISY SCHAFFER
- DICK WELLBAND
- BROOKVILLE
- E. H. WILSON
Popular among the white large-cupped varieties are:
- HERA
- SILVER STAR
Popular among the apricot large-cupped varieties are:
- PINK FANCY
- PINK RIM
Among the small-cupped varieties, we have such fine yellow ones as:
- SCARLET LEADER
- MRS. BARCLAY
- RENE DE CHALONS
Bicolor ones are:
- LADY DIANA MANNERS
- SUNRISE
- The dramatic LA ARGENTINA
White ones are:
- MRS. NETTE O’MELVENY
- CHINESE WHITE
Double-Flowered Daffodils
The doubles, of which there are several different types, flower over a long period.
The best-known varieties are
- TWINK, a combination of pale yellow and orange, early
- IRENE COPELAND, pure white with primrose inner petals
- CHEERFULNESS, cream with yellow at the base of the petals, late, with several flowers on a stem.
All of these are densely doubled.
Tazetta Hybrids
Those in this group have clusters of flowers, like the popular Chinese sacred lily or paper white, used for forcing Christmas bloom.
They are, however, much harder; we’ve had no trouble growing them out of doors here (20 miles north of New York City).
Most visitors to our garden are surprised to see the tazetta hybrids north of Washington, D. C. because they are generally considered to be too tender for growing outside year-round.
CHEERFULNESS (mentioned above as a double) is sometimes listed as a tazetta (poetaz) variety and actually, it is both.
GERANIUM has milk-white flowers with orange cups and SCARLET GEM IS golden yellow with scarlet cups.
GOLDEN PERFECTION has only two or three flowers per stem, but they are large, as are those of LA FIANCEE. As a group, the cluster-flowered daffodils are late flowering.
Poeticus Daffodils
The poet’s daffodil, of which the old pheasant’s-eye (N. poeticous recur-via) is the prototype, is the last of all to bloom, often blooming until the late tulips are in flower.
If there is any other good spring flower that is as easy to grow as the daffodil, I have yet to encounter it.
They are widely tolerant to soils and ask only to be ordered early, planted as soon as received, and left alone for 4 to 6 years or longer.
When their numbers have increased to a point where they become overcrowded, merely dig them up.
This is best done in the midsummer after the foliage has died down. Then separate them and replant.
While they do appreciate an application of complete plant food each spring, they will get along without it in ordinary, good soil. We plant the bulbs 5” to 7” inches deep to the tops of the bulbs.
This will permit cultivation and an over-planting of annuals in early summer, without danger of injuring the bulbs.
44659 by Fred F. Rockwell