It's a whole new world to move "mollycoddled" daffodils that are grown for show purposes, then moving my garden that I talked about last week. The reason I didn't combine the two is that the preparation experience is very different. My main garden with it naturalized daffodils, peonies, lillies, irises, and various other bushes and perennials does not require the extensive preparation as show daffodils. Collector and show quality hybridized daffodils, or any other exotic plantings requires a careful and deliberate preparation if the high quality is to continue after the move.
When I moved my Daffodil Garden from Northern Virginia to Bethesda, MD., in the fall of 1996, I never realized that I'd have to move the garden again in 1999, but it happened. In 1996, I only had about 400 varieties of daffodils to move, now I have over 900 varieties. My daffodil garden looked like this during the spring of 1999.
Daffodils are easy to grow, but to get the show quality blooms next spring takes a lot of effort. Daffodils like a rich soil with a lot of organic matter, that is well drained but readily absorbs water during the growing season, and is dry in the summer season.
In June, we began to realize that we would be out of the Bethesda house this fall. Therefore, I took the chance that we were "really" moving and dug "all" our daffodils after they died back. That was a stroke of genius, as the bulbs were already out of the ground when the final decision came about. I had so many bulbs that I run out of space to store them over the summer. Everything, including my roto-tiller handle bars became a place to hang bags of bulbs. But, when moving time came, the daffodils were ready to roll.
The Higgins' Daffodil Gardens before the move.
I hated the idea that I would have little time for preparing new beds, and a very short time from moving into the house to having daffodils planted in these new beds. Moving the household itself is time consuming and tiring enough, without the back-breaking labor of building a new garden. Try moving a household and a garden at the same time! After having the experience, I don't recommend it.
This is what we had to work with. A wild jungle, after leaving a tame agriculture growing condition. Other than a small lawn, everything in our new home was covered with small trees, brush and three feet tall weeds.
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