Landscaping Beds

Landscapped flower beds designed to bring Spring cheerfulness and color to the home are a good place to plant daffodils, and are used by many to grow show quality flowers. Hopefully, these beds do not require extensive summer watering.

Landscapped daffodils should be planted in "clumps," both to keep from mixing the varieties, and for beautification. Clumps means to plant each different variety with others of the same to form small bouquets of flowers, or clumps. This also keeps the problem of labeling to a minimum, as one labels the clump and not individual daffodils spread about the yard as single bulbs. Consider the size and color of the daffodils before planting. Shorter divisions like 5, 6, and 8 daffodils should be up front so as not the be hidden behind taller foliage. Some division 7 daffodils are also short, but other varieties like Stratosphere and Susan Pearson are nearly 30 inches tall in my garden. Consider the colors for artistic appeal. Some like to see a "sea" of yellow, uniform looking flowers. I like to see a mixture of different colors, ranging from the shorter in front to the taller in back. However, this can get tricky when you plant early, mid and late season daffodils in the same bed, which is my preference as I extend the blooming season as long as possible. The trick is to make sure that you don't block some varieties that will be blooming later than the early ones.

Many a best in show has come from flower beds that brighten up the yard and add beauty to the neighborhood. However, the down side of having daffodils in landscaping beds is the foliage after blooming. Some gardeners, myself included, tolerate the foliage until it turns brown and can be cut back. Others hide the foliage by planting summer plants to complement them, and help block the foliage from view. There are many resources to help plan a bed that will provide growth and flowering plants from early spring to late fall. By all means, do not braid or tie up the foliage or cut it back before it dies, or turns brown. Daffodils bulbs, this year, form the flower for next year. The bulbs need the foliage to grow and add vital nutrients to "recharge" for next year.

Naturalizing Daffodils in Borders

Anything that applies to landscaping beds applies to daffodils planted in the borders, with a couple of extra considerations. Daffodils are excellent for naturalizing and compete well with smaller roots, grass, weeds and ground cover, and make excellent rock garden additions. If you area is such that lilies do not have to be watered in deep summer, daffodils and lilies complement each other and do well when planted together.

Borders are traditionally where formerly good daffodils are "put out to pasture," or retired. Daffodils get surpassed by newer and better varieties, and some are bought specifically for the borders. It is not unknown for serious gardeners that show and grow, to have a collection of unknown daffodils, species, lesser know varieties adding beauty spring each year. Acropolis still gives me a show quality bloom now and then, but has been by passed so long ago by better division 4 daffies that the only place I can keep it is in the borders, where it puts on a marvelous white garden show that always draws one across the yard to admire, and talk to the neighbors. Treat all daffodils like they are show quality, and prepare the border bed for them the same as show flowers. In turn, the naturalized bulbs will give you many returns for years to come.

Show Beds

Show beds are those beds designed for the exclusive purpose of growing show quality daffodils. They may or may not be over planted with other plants, or made into a vegetable garden after the daffodil blooming season. In considering over planting show beds, make sure that your summer crop does not need deep watering to survive and produce. In my area, squash, tomatoes, watermelons, etc., will grow well and produce all summer long without watering, except for droughts which will occur periodically. The only other problem with gardens is that the deer will find them and eat the garden before it can be harvested. Of course they don't just eat the fruit of the garden, they eat it all and nibble the foliage down to bare earth.

Show beds are desirable because they can be prepared for the exclusive growing of daffodils. Chose an area that gets at least six hours of direct sunshine. Morning sunshine is best. The beds should be in an area that is not chosen for home flower beds and beautification, but for utility. Insure that watering is not necessary during the "dry" summer months.

If the after bloom foliage, and brown foliage is not desirable at that location because of home aesthetics, put the show bed somewhere else. Planting an "island" of low growing evergreen plants between the home and the beds or between the beds and the street is often used as a method to "hide" the daffodils during their "ugly" period. As we know, we don't cut back or braid the foliage, but let it die naturally, therefore, it has a stage that is undesirable to some. I don't mind the foliage, but again, my show beds are hidden at the back of our area by an island of azaleas, evergreens, dogwoods, and low growing thick bushes. By blooming time, not a "show bed" daffodil can be seen from the home or the road, just the naturalized and border grown varieties.

The soil should be prepared as above, and the beds prepared for planting in a definable scheme. In my article on digging, I state that daffodils should be planted in a method designed for future digging or lifting of the bulbs. Unless one is planting bulbs in pots, the bulbs will be in the ground with nothing except our labels to indicate the names and where the bulbs are. All bulbs look alike under the ground, so the question becomes starting with the label, which direction are the bulbs and are they planted in a straight line, in a square pattern, or in a triangle. A solution to the problem is the planting of all daffodils following one method, as a consistent method reduces the confusion at digging time. To really understand the necessity of a consistent method, one only has to help someone else dig bulbs, and find themselves not being sure what is being dug.

Putting Bulbs into the Ground

The bulb planting methods that have been successfully used include the straight line "row," the "square" and the "triangle." The row is generally used when planting five to seven daffodils or more of the same variety. The square or triangle can be used to plant two to five daffodils. I will now explain how to use these methods using the principle that daffodils need to be about six inches apart, and 10 to 12 inches between varieties:

Rows

The row or straight line is a time tested method. It doesn't matter the physical shape of the bed, square, rectangle or oblong. Start from an identifiable point, such as a permanent plant, or landmark, such as a piece of water pipe cut to length and pounded into the ground. Plant the bulbs in a row six inches apart, in a straight line across the width of the bed, regardless of how many bulbs it takes to fill in the row from start to the end. The rows should be a minimum of ten inches apart, and would be best at twelve inches apart.

I firmly believe in the plot plan or the mapping method, regardless if labeling at the time of planting or not. I know a number of people who are just devastated because someone came by, and as a prank, removed all their labels leaving them totally in the dark as to what the daffodils are. Use blot plans and label if you must, however, with or without labels, with a plot plan, you can recover your daffodils. See more about this subject under title Labeling.

It is important to keep "order" in the planting to avoid confusion during digging. Keeping the rows in straight lines will reduce the possibility of mixing bulbs. On the second and all succeeding rows, make sure the width measurement (10 or 12 inches between rows) starts with the location of the first bulb and the last bulb. A method is to draw a line from the first to the last bulbs and plant all other bulbs in that straight line between the two.

Making a Planting Aide

A simple method to solve the width of rows issues is to use string on stakes driven into the grown that outline the length and wide of the bed (in other words form a rectangle with the string tied to stakes). The width of the stakes should judge the rows across the bed, and the length of the stakes should judge the length of the overall bed. Use a ruler or a eight inch wide by five foot long strip of plywood as a ruler. Place the plywood/ruler across the width of the bed under the string and mark the location where the string crosses the plywood on both ends. Next mark the plywood ruler at each six inch interval starting at where the string crossed the plywood, all the way across to the second string mark.

The eight inch wide plywood ruler also accomplishes a secondary purpose that eases planting. If rows are to be 10 inches wide, the eight inch plywood allows for a perfect measurement between rows allowing two rows to be planted without moving the marker. A bulb planted in the standard two inch wide hole will have one inch space on each side of it. Therefore, an eight inch marker and a two inch hole on both sides of the board, makes a perfect 10 inch separation of rows.

A similar method for use on raised beds is to mark the sides of the raised beds with a marker pen or paint. Using the same plywood ruler as described in the above paragraphs, one simply uses the marks instead of the strings and place the plywood ruler between the marks and the six inch apart locations for planting daffodils are immediately determined. Please note that some adjustments may have to be made in the plywood ruler uses as a marker, e.g., I use a separate one for my framed beds than I do for my beds directly in the ground. The reason is that I use five foot wide framed beds (nine daffodils in a row) that require slightly different six inch interval patterns than the four foot wide unframed beds (seven daffodils in a row).

Planting in a Square or Triangle

My neighbor, a Washington Daffodil Society board member, is the typical planter in the square or triangle planting method. He does everything from a plot plan and refuses to label, saying; "it's a waste of time and effort." He goes on to say; "labels are for visitors," and he doesn't want them in his daffodils anyway. "They can stand to the side and admire them from a distance." He raises his daffodils in wooden frame beds, more so than raised beds. The frame is marked with a notch painted black along both the length and the width at twelve inch intervals. He uses a string to match up the marks and turns his beds into small one foot square plots. The daffodils are planted in the one foot plots to the left and behind the mark, and never more than four of each variety. With four bulbs, he plants them in a six inch square (six inches from each other) in the middle of the foot square plot. With three bulbs he plants in a triangle, like planting the four, except leaving out the top left hand side bulb. When planting just two bulbs, he uses the same method, planting the two bulbs on the right and leaving out the two places for bulbs on the left. One bulb is planted on the bottom right. "This way," as he states, "I never have to try and remember where the bulbs are; they are always in the same place within each foot square plot."

Please note that when this person goes out to select flowers for the show, or bulbs for digging, the plot plan is always present and referenced at all times. The plot plan is effective and there is no problems with mislabeling flowers for the shows.

While visiting other gardens, I've noticed that labels are often used as a location point, or starting point with the daffodils planted in a definable method using the label as the base. Generally, the method was the same or the same principle of my neighbor's. This leads to the conclusion that, regardless of the method used, the established daffodil growers use a definable pattern in planting their daffodils. It's very useful in locating the flowers for show, and the bulbs when digging.

Planting the daffodils in small groups or clumps of three to five brings the best presentation of the daffodils to the garden, and allows for ease of marking and location. However, for efficiency of growing, the rows make the best use of the available space.