I promised to send some daffodil bulbs to a friend who has just bought his first house. He said he was in Peoria. When he sent me the address, I found it was Peoria, Arizona. Is it possible to grow daffodils in Arizona? Is anyone doing so?
Bill Lee
Bill,
Peoria is now a tract-home suburb of Phoenix, about 10 miles NW of downtown. When I lived in Phoenix – until I escaped for college – Peoria was a dumpy little town nobody would admit living in. "You’re from Peoria??" (in a most deprecating tone)
I lived in Laveen, 20 miles south of Peoria,. and I never saw a daffodil – even a tazetta – until I lived in Berkeley, California. There were cacti and mesquite in the nearby desert, and my mom grew zinnias in the summer and pansies in the winter.
Later, when I started growing daffodils, I used to send bulbs of various early-season varieties back home with instructions to plant them on on the east side of the house, where they wouldn’t be baked by the afternoon sun. All were fleeting there – if they bloomed, they didn’t make it past the first spring. Some family friends did manage to keep some paper whites alive (but seldom blooming) by planting them on the east side of their house. They had trees that provided shade a good portion of the day.
The intensely high summer ground temperatures there apparently cook all daffodil bulbs, even tazettas. It’s routinely 110F on many days from late June through August. Night temperatures drop to the 80s or low 90s, so the soil doesn’t cool very much.
If you send daffodil bulbs, send paper whites.
Perhaps there are other bulbous plants that could stand the heat.
At 06:53 AM 9/3/2010, you wrote:
Hi Bill,
Just a thought, but there are some places that sell pre-cooled bulbs. I am not crazy about the idea, but perhaps pre-cooled daffodil bulbs could be planted every year – much the same way some people plant tulips every year. It could get a bit expensive using new bulbs every year, but the daffodils would probably bloom (until the heat hit them hard). I did live in the desert in New Mexico for 2 1/2 years but did not try to grow daffodils there. It is amazing what you can grow in the desert if you water frequently. I remember that some people had amazingly lush back yards using drip irrigation.
Dave Liedlich
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Check out Israel and all the "wild " flowers and what they have done with drip lines. When I was in college at Davis, Israelis were there figuring out some of these techniques.
Colleen NE Calif.