On my property I have lots of gardens. Some in full sun others in the woods with very little sun. I have planted various varieties in the woods and have found some varieties do quite well in full shade. Others do terrible and just stagnate or die off.
Is their any documentation on which varieties do well in shade? This would be a new piece of information that could be added to DaffSeek.
Jet fire and Little Gem both multiply readily for me in WA state in the woods.
Any others that people have had luck with in the woods?
Bill,
I live in a hot weather area on the Coastal Northeast North Carolina. This state has recognized the fact that the heat and hot weather is not good for daffodils as far back as the 1930s when cut-flower farming was big time in NC. They recommended a cover crop to help protect the bulbs from the weather in the middle of the summer. I have been using a few shade trees, and mulch to do the same, however, like you I find that some daffodils just don’t like it down here and other love it.
I have some success with growing certain daffodils in the shade. However some things like the Div 5 miniatures and species, love to be baked and to go totally dry. I find that the Jonquil varieties Div 7, Tazetta Div 8 and bulbocodiums Div 10 love it here as well. Late daffodils and whites, well they don’t care for our heat.
One just has to get to know their daffodils and how to grow them in the gardens where each one lives and gardens. I don’t think that the uniform or standard method of growing daffodils works everywhere.
Clay
I’ve grown Itzim 6 Y-R, with which I won an ADS Gold this year, in mostly shade (maybe 4 hrs of dappled sun) for the last 7 years. It multiplies yearly. Rapture 6 Y-Y, planted next to it, has noticeably fallen off in the last 2 years.
Darrin
Hi Bill,
I’ve grown daffodils in the semi-woods for years, that is, the trees are limbed up so as the sun moves around, the daffodils will get some sun. If your woods are not evergreen trees, then I think if you plant early varieties, you should be ok. Darrin mentioned ‘Itzim’ That does well here, too. ‘Rapture’ planted in full sun dies out for me here. So it’s gonna be a learning process. Try some of the common ones like ‘Ice Follies’ or ‘Carlton’. If you’re digging your bulbs, try a few of some of those you have a lot of, and see what happens. You might have to give them some extra fertilizer, since the bulbs are competing with the trees.
Mary Lou
All of my cultivars are partially shaded and seem to be doing well. I garden in west-central Louisiana. I think that the further south one gardens, the more important it is to provide some shade. None of my daffodils get more than 4 hours of direct sun.
Those of you who have come to our garden in the woods for either the 1997 or the 2011 ADS conventions noticed the Wister planting along the driveway–shade, but oak trees (natural mulch),’ These are never watered and maybe fertilized once, if that. This year, three years down, I had large, floriferous, longblooming clumps of Rapture, Sweetness, Golden Aura, Kokopelli, Falconet, and Golden Echo. (no, not a Wister, YET!) Right now, Stratosphere and Tripartite are in full bloom.
Good idea–plant some of a cultivar in a sunny location, or the sunniest you have, and some in shade–treat just alike—and keep records.
On the other hand, my sunniest bed is a 70-foot row inside the picket fence garden, where I planted only Division 7. This bed was excavated and re-worked in the year 2000 and nothing has been done since–no fertilizer, no water except rainfall, no digging and dividing. Most of it, 85% is still thick and blooming.
As Allen Lacy told us, “You garden where you live.” But it helps if you pay attention to what works best.
Loyce McKenzie we are right on line of 7b-8a