Daffodil after care .

I use Growmore, it is so easy to sprinkle. The advice is to remove complete stems of dead flowers or leave alone if you want them to seed and spread. I know the dying leaves are ugly but it is best not to tie them in a knot and definitely not cut them off until brown.

Hi Shysal ,
I use Vitax Q4 as I have so many iris in my garden .

I need to look up Growmore to see if it has a low nitrogen content .

I really don't know why people continue to either cut or tie up daffodil leaves when there have been articles in gardening magazines or gardening programmes against it .

It's a bit like telling people that geraniums are pelargonums .

I was talking to a friend ,who has an incredibly beautiful and expensive florist shop and I asked her why she'd changed the plant labels from pelargonum to geranium .

Busy with orders - she was exasperated by people querying it !

Happy gardening .

I cut finished stalks of the ones I can easily reach but the ones at the top of the sloping bed get left! Leaves at leftto die back. I top dress with a mulch from a biodigester and also use growmore (at different times of year..not together!)

Thank you PECS .
I looked up the NPK of Growmore and because I have iris in every flower bed except in my fruit section and very shady side I can't use it - Growmore has a higher nitrogen content .

I've decided to try it in my shady section .The soil is looking a little tired and compacted there though the plants are doing well at the moment .

I take off the finished flowers stalks so they don't put energy into making seeds and give a general mulch of leaf mould and compost mixed together with a handful of blood, fish and bone.
I do get impatient with the yellowing leaves though and itch to cut them off each year!

I too get impatient - all those lovely plants coming up in amongst the brown mess.

You cut the flower heads off or else the daffodil will put all its energy into making seeds. Then you feed the bulb for next year which can just be by leaving the leaves for 6 weeks or also adding a fertiliser.

Last year I had beautiful orange tulips which have been left in for several years. Not this year, however, as the deer have munched off the emerging flower stems and the leaves. I am wondering if and how I can help the bulbs recover for next year.

My new garden has very little border space as the previous owner had it covered in gravel to make it low maintenance. She grew everything in pots other than tulips, hyacinths and daffodils which, although they’re a lovely display, are taking over what little space there is.

I’m a plantaholic so will lift them as they start dying back and pot them up to complete the process. I’d rather have spring bulbs in pots and perennials in borders next year than the other way round.

I’ll also plant up some more pots in the autumn in case these don’t flower again.

I remember having a landlady who tied the foliage of her daffodils when they were dying back. They looked so weird, lining each side of the path to her front door it almost put me off gardening. ??

I get over this problem by packing the plants into my garden so tightly that the dying leaves from spring bulbs are lost in the new growth on shrubs and perennials. I move the bulbs I've had in pots into the borders and buy new bulbs for my pots each autumn.

Every autumn and spring I mulch the soil everywhere with the compost I make with garden and kitchen waste.

I just leave them alone. Most of them come up and bloom year after year, including the ones already planted when we moved here 25 years ago.

But, I'm a very mess tolerant gardener.

Esmay

Hi Shysal ,
I use Vitax Q4 as I have so many iris in my garden .

I need to look up Growmore to see if it has a low nitrogen content .

I really don't know why people continue to either cut or tie up daffodil leaves when there have been articles in gardening magazines or gardening programmes against it .

It's a bit like telling people that geraniums are pelargonums .

I was talking to a friend ,who has an incredibly beautiful and expensive florist shop and I asked her why she'd changed the plant labels from pelargonum to geranium .

Busy with orders - she was exasperated by people querying it !

Happy gardening .

Oh dear...I thought geraniums were pelargoniums (though I prefer the name "geranium" and call them that usually. I have also been binding my daffodil leaves. Such a bore too and soo unsightly. Is that why they don?t reflower?

Ok! Will start with a fresh batch of bulbs next Autumn and leave them alone next year.. Am so fond of them but seems I'm an ignorant gardener!

I don't deadhead daffs or tie their leaves up. I have more every year. Likewise primroses and foxgloves and dandelions and daisies and anything else that chooses to grow in my garden and doesn't get eaten by deer.

Hi Giulia ,

Not your fault - blame the Swedish botanist,Linnaeus.
It was rectified ,but the name had become popular .
Look up Cranesbill/geranium on wiki .

I remember a neighbour having a heated discussion with my knowledgeable mother and grandmother over the same subject .
She grew lots of pelargoniums and was furious when they said
they weren't geraniums .
That was 60 years ago !

They are beautiful - no matter what we call them !

On daffodils -
if you cut the leaves or tie the them into a tight knot - essential photosynthesis can't occur .
So no flowers on your daffodils the next year .
It takes six weeks for them to store up what they need to flower .
They should be deadheaded ,but it's really tedious if you have a lot of them .
I do deadhead as mine as hybrids and are in narrow flower beds so they are easy to reach .

I didn't use to feed them but now I do mainly because I have so many plants crammed into my garden !

Off soon to plant my pelargoniums and for my neighbours to say -lovely geraniums !

The ones growing naturally in the lawn will be allowed to die back and eventually get chopped with the mower. I usually deadhead them, have occasionally thrown Growmore down but generally they are left to their own devices.

The tête-a-tête ones in tubs at the front will be tied down neatly because otherwise they look such a mess. I always do this and it doesn't seem to have affected them at all - they are more profuse than ever this year.
I don't tie them with string, I twist one of the leaves round each one.

Off soon to plant my pelargoniums and for my neighbours to say -lovely geraniums !

The pelaroniums are in the same tubs as the daffodils, that's why I tie down the daffs.

I can spell but my stylus can't.

Baggs

I don't deadhead daffs or tie their leaves up. I have more every year. Likewise primroses and foxgloves and dandelions and daisies and anything else that chooses to grow in my garden and doesn't get eaten by deer.

You're definitely a gardener after my own heart, Baggs

A lawn isn't a lawn without daisies.

Ours are mostly not grass!

Celandines anyone?

I used to try to root them out, but they appear, give a splash of colour then disappear completely until next year.

I dead head daffodils and then just leave them alone until the leaves look really unwell before cutting them right down. - and
until I need to use those pots to plant out summer bedding plant in May.

Like Baggs and Maisie, I don't do anything with mine and they keep multiplying. I think they must seed as they pop up in places I've never planted them. We have a big, semi-wild garden in a rural area, so they're free to wander! They must hybridise too, as I've had a few fancy ones pop up.
Lots of celandines, primroses, foxgloves and bluebells too.

I think I love you Baggs reading others and the first year I’ve had daffs, I thought I had to do things with them, I’ll leave them, phew!

I read a very interesting article recently about daffs. Basically, you don’t need to do anything! It also explained that if they go ‘blind’ it’s because the original bulbs have made new bulbs but they’re overcrowded and can’t flower. You can dig them up, replant further apart and in a couple of seasons you should have new flowers.

I don't have a tidy garden & plants just die back as others grow.