Bulb Information, Growing Daffodils, Planting

overplanting flowerbeds

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Hello all,
In my desire to have the garden explode with daffodils (and some tulips) in the spring, I find myself in a bit of a squeeze.  I’ve planted my bulbs pretty close to each other in clumps and tuffs.  In the springtime, everything seems to look great.  The problem:  I am not sure whether or not I might be smothering the perennials planted throughout the flower beds.  After the daffs have blossomed and only their leaves remain, I’m concerned that the underlying perennials might not be getting enough light, water and nutrients to make their appearance look worthwhile.  I’ve now decided to cut back the leaves of the daffodils and tulips down to about 20 cm (close to six weeks after they have bloomed). 
I am stumped a bit.  I’d like to have the cake and eat it:  I’d like to have lots of daffodils (and tulips) and then perennials.  Does anyone have any advice??
Thanks,
Niels Benatar

7 comments for “overplanting flowerbeds”

  1. Hi  Niels,

     

    Your query sent me scurrying to the appropriate part of The Daffodil Cultural Manual which I wrote in 2004.  In it I describe a ten year trial carried out at Wisley and reported on by Tony Kingdom.  The results demonstrated very clearly the dangers of cutting foliage off too early.  That cut after two weeks after flowering had disastrous results in terms of the number of flowers and bulb survival.  However, the results from foliage cut after six weeks demonstrated little deterioration from the control group which were allowed to die down naturally.  The message – leave the foliage alone for as long as you can!  Given that you are allowing six weeks of natural growth your proposal should not harm the flowering pattern if Kingdom’s results are accurate. Why not conduct your own experiment!  Personally I would not touch the foliage in my exhibition beds until it has died down. The naturalized bulbs get a cut with the lawn mower about a month or so  after flowering – the time depending on how much I am nagged by the Chief Gardener!  They still flower OK after 15 years in the same place especially if I remember to feed them.

     

    Hope this is helpful.  Early tazettas in flower and lots of spikes up in the show beds.

     

    Cheers,

     

    Peter (from a very wet NZ).

     

     

     


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  2. Hi Niels
     
    I never cut down my daffodils or any other bulbs, with regard to boarders full of other plant I have never found any adverse effects on the crop following on. if you think in the wild is this the natural state of play, nobody cuts and trims for the next crop nature does it in its own way.
     
    As a bulb Merchant as you can imagine we always have bulbs left at the end of a season, all but the exhibition daffodils get planted in our garden, my Terry’s method of planting is simple, find a space dig a big hole to accommodate what is to be planted roughly 21/2 times the depth of the bulb or corm. Throw the variety in the hole spread them around to cover the diameter of the hole and back fill, it does not matter if they are on their side or upside down they will find their own level and they will always turn to flower. She never has a fails !  We some times get drifts of other bulbs at flowering time and sometimes she digs other bulbs up from previous planting but just puts them back in the same place. 
     
    That is what our general garden is about drifts of colour from October to October. With the daffodils all my exhibition beds at the moment the leaves are in various stages of dyeing back, most are now 6 week after flowering and as Peter said they have done their job. I shall start lifting next weekend around the 19 June and should finish by 30 June. which is about the norm for where I live. Terry will put the tops on her miniatures next week as well and start the baking process.
     
    But my advice is to leave all your daffodil leaves on until they can be easily be taken off once they have turned yellow and laid down.
     
    Roger
     
     

  3. That’s pretty much how I do it. I wait at least a month after the blooms fade and I can’t stand the mess any longer even as the City Inspector slowly cruises by my yard debating if he needs to stop and put up a little sign which lists my offenses and how big the fine will be if I don’t cooperate pronto !

    As to blooms the following year, it doesn’t seem to be an issue!
    Chris Durrill

  4. Niels,
    Roger and Peter are right.  Just remember another thing – The flowers you plant amid your daffodils should not be ones that require a lot of water during their growth season.  I never take the foliage off until it is dead and dry, but if I do put flowers amid the bulbs it would be something like zinnias or cosmos or marigolds which require little water.
    Donna Dietsch


  5. Donna, I agree wholeheartedly. I made the mistake of planting daylilies in amongst my daffs, and the daylilies will need to be moved forward, as their ever-enlarging clumps will eventually choke out the daffs. It makes sense to overplant the daff beds with annuals, but the problem is that if you wait until the foliage has died back, it’s too late to plant the annuals. Daylilies make a nice compliment, as they grow, the daff foliage gets hidden, but since the clumps can get big, the daylilies need to have their own “line” in front of the daffs.

     

    I know the established wisdom is to allow daffodil bulbs to stay dry during their dormant period in the summer, but I do have one ongoing “experiment” which makes me wonder about that. I put a new mini rose bed in an area where there was a line of daffodils, and while I thought I had them all dug up, I didn’t. The next spring, Redhill and Mint Julep bloomed. Now, that rose bed gets a ton of water, plenty of fertilizer, and intensive care. But – the daff flowers in that bed are enormous, the foliage is healthy, and the blooms are great – in fact one of the Redhill blooms made it into a purple ribbon winning collection last year. If I have any extra bulbs to plant this fall, I may put a few in the other rose beds just to see what happens. The key may be that the rose beds have excellent drainage.

     

    Mike Kuduk

     


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  6. Michael, annuals that overseed come up in good timing to replace the dying daffodil foliage here in TN. I have red Flanders poppies followed by cosmos and zinnias that bloom until fall. I have just gotten some larkspur started this year, too. I don’t water the beds at all. The beds have a very casual wildflower meadow effect throughout the summer, but I like it. When the first freeze hits here (mid to late October), I strip all remaining foliage off the beds to put on the compost piles and sprinkle seeds over any new beds. The beds are bare until the first daffodils appear, but otherwise I might miss some of the off-season blooms, such as bulbocodiums! The annuals start to appear as the daffodils die back.
    At a gathering of our local daffodil group on Sunday, Dick Frank was saying that he thinks daffodils can take a lot more water than we might think in the summer as long as they have good drainage. It sounds like what you’re thinking, too. Let us know the results of your experiment with daffs in the fed and watered rose beds!
    Becky Fox Matthews that daffy girl near Nashville
    1st Vice President American Daffodil Society, Inc. http://www.daffodilusa.org http://www.daffodilusastore.org http://www.daffseek.org Middle Tennessee Daffodil Society http://www.daffodiltn.org


  7. I suspect this too, although I wouldn’t bet my prize-winning daffs on it!  In our river bottom, which sometimes floods in the spring and summer in heavy rains and where water sometimes stands, there are old daffodils growing (I believe they’re Queen Victoria) which were planted during the Depression, sometimes around 1928-1934. They bloom magnificently every year. And I had some extra daffodils on hand (cultivar unknown) many years ago (prior to “yellow fever” days) which I planted in an area which was wet through about June, and they were gorgeous too, and were still blooming magnificently many years after I first planted them.  This may be species or cultivar dependent, but like I said, I wouldn’t bet my prize-winners on it!
    Lina Burton
    In a message dated 6/15/2010 8:56:26 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, title= writes:

    Dick Frank was
    saying that he thinks daffodils can take a lot more water than we might
    think in the summer as long as they have good drainage


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