When over-planting with vegetables, I try to plant between the daffodil "clumps" and not right on top of the bulbs. As my daffodil "rows" or "clumps" are separated by at least 10 inches, I plant the squash right in the middle of that 10 inches. This allows me to plant vegetables while the daffodils still have foliage, and get them off to a good start before the daffodils have totally died back. By the time the vegetable are beginning to take over, I can cut back the daffodil foliage leaving the vegetables to provide shade and also to absorb some of the moisture in the ground. Most of all, grow vegetable that will not need watering in late summer. Watering will not be good for the daffodils.
I plant my beautification garden daffodils mingled with Siberian irises, beared irises, Oriental/Asiatic lilies, and daylilies, all backed by peonies and shrubs. However, in my haste to get everything planted last fall before the ground froze, I planted daffodils in just about any location that I could find earth. I'm writing this article in April, and I find that I have daffodils in bloom scattered over my meadow, down my driveway to the street, and even under my azalea bushes. I'm still wondering what it was that I was drinking last fall when I was planting daffodils and trying to stay warm!! Hmmmmmmm! Maybe I do know!!!
To add to my spring bloom, I have Dogwoods planted in my borders, along with a few Red Bud and Wild Cherry trees. They bloom about the same time as my Daffodils. Inside the protection of my Garden boundary fence, I also have apple, peach, bush cherries, pears, and wild native-plums. These are fairly small trees and provide a vast array of color in the spring. Alined along both sides of my almost quarter mile driveway from the street to the house are 35 foot ornamental pear trees that provide a massive bloom in the earliest of spring, and shade in the summer. The pears are the one thing that the previous owners supplied with the house that I am thankful. However, it's the wild Dogwood trees in the borders that put up the most beautiful displays of bloom.
I top off these bushes and trees with naturalized plantings of daisies, sunflowers, black-eyed susans, red-raspberries, hostas, and roses. All in all, it sounds like a lot, but I keep thinking that I have hardly enough plants in my gardens to make a show. I like massive displays, and a few individual black-eyed susans standing on their own does not give the same impression as a hundred in bloom all planted together and sending our their message, "come see me in my glory." As this is the garden's first year, these plants will thicken up as years go by and I will start having the displays that I want.
