Flowerless daffodils

Trotter

Hi all,

I planted a load of daffodil bulbs around the perimeter of the back garden 4 years ago. Every year they come up and only 5 or 6 of the 20 bulbs grow with flowers on them. Does anyone know what could be wrong?

Ive heard a few things like not leaving them rot away as opposed to lawn mowering them fairly quick after they wilt, will cause them to come up next year without flowers.

Id appreciate any tips!

Sonnenblumen

Repeated early mowing of the foliage after blooms fade will effectively undermine the bulbs ability to replenish adequate resources for the following year and will ultimately lead to bulb failure and decay.

bmaxi

I agree with Sonnenblumen but another cause of blindness is not planting deeply enough. You need at least twice the depth of soil above the daffodil as the size of the bulb itself, i.e if the bulb is 1" from top to bottom then you need 2" of soil above the top. You should always leave daffodil foliage to die down naturally and when they have, you can dig them up and replant at the right depth.

Trotter

Thanks I'll do that. I'll leave them be and when they've died off of their own accord I'll dig them up and replant them. That might improve things next year.

annieoburns

They need a certain amount of direct sun to form new flower for following year. So new bulbs planted in shade will flower nicely year one but diminish thereafter. The plant forms the basis of the following years flower in the 6 weeks or so after flowering so this is reason to leave the leaves for this period as they are providing energy needs for plant to do its work... but sun is part of process too.

I have bulbs in pots that I place to cheer up shady corners but when flowers are over I move to sunny part of garden to 'mature' for next year.

M.Pellet

They dont like being overly crowded either..its agood idea after flowering to dig up and seperate any new bulbs,keeping a reasonable distance between them.

Trotter

I decided to dig up the offending daffodils today. My intention was to dig out a channel where they are along a fence and mix in some good peat and put in some new bulbs then. I was actually amazed when I dug them up because the bulbs had shrunk to less than an inch around. The stems were very long and rigid but no flower as I said before. With them being against a fence maybe the variety I got just didn't like the lack of sunlight. I'll dig it out in the summer and have it in good shape for September planting.

bertie1

Feed them with tomatoe plant food mixed up in a watering can now while the leaves are up , the nutrients will go into the bulbs for next years flowers

bmaxi

Trotter wrote: »

I decided to dig up the offending daffodils today. My intention was to dig out a channel where they are along a fence and mix in some good peat and put in some new bulbs then. I was actually amazed when I dug them up because the bulbs had shrunk to less than an inch around. The stems were very long and rigid but no flower as I said before. With them being against a fence maybe the variety I got just didn't like the lack of sunlight. I'll dig it out in the summer and have it in good shape for September planting.

Throw them out and get new bulbs in Autumn, not worth the hassle of trying to save them, daffodils are very cheap. Always make sure you plant bulbs as soon as you can, the bulb is a food resource which is being depleted every minute it is out of the ground.

Trotter

bmaxi wrote: »

Throw them out and get new bulbs in Autumn, not worth the hassle of trying to save them, daffodils are very cheap. Always make sure you plant bulbs as soon as you can, the bulb is a food resource which is being depleted every minute it is out of the ground.

When would you recommend planting the new ones?

bmaxi

Trotter wrote: »

When would you recommend planting the new ones?

September/October.

redsteveireland

bmaxi wrote: »

September/October.

Hi, sorry for jumping in, but will new bulbs survive the winter?

looksee

Yes, daffodils are very hardy.