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Preparing Daffodil Beds for Fall Planting.

© Clay Higgins

Preparing Garden Beds

It's that time again to prepare those garden beds for fall planting of daffodils. Don't wait until the last minute as the beds will need some time to settle-in before planting to get the best performance next year. The objective of bed preparation is to amend the soil, as daffodils like a rich, well drained soil with lots of organic matter.

(explore the links at the bottom of this page for other ideas on soils and gardening)

Daffodils also like sunlight, with full sunlight being best, but speckled sunlight will grow good daffodils. Daffodils grown under an evergreen tree is not a good location. Before you start preparing the beds, find the ideal location in your yard that will add spring beauty, and one that will be easy to manage the watering and the weeding.

As I prepare my garden beds for fall planting, I will be continuing to make new beds from scratch that have not been used for planting daffodils. In my case, I have hard acidic red clay soil that has to be broken up, and digging for the first time is a "heavy-duty" chore. I've learned to use heavy equipment for that first breaking up of the compacted heavy red clay, but after that the garden shovel or spade will do fine.

This summer, the plan for fall beds is to use a small back-hoe to break up the soil. When the back-hoe's job is done, top soil has to be added along with organic matter and sand. All this is to be mixed into the new beds, along with fertilizer and lime and other ingredients to make for a "comfortable" bed for the bulbs.

Daffodil Cocktail

Last year I used the term Daffodil Cocktail mix in an article, and I think that the term is still applicable. It's a dry "daffodil cocktail" mix where I add the ingredients, including such as peat, mushroom soil, leaf mold, horse manure and let it all compost together like this pile in the picture. Next, apply bulbs. All that has to be done after that is add "winter" for the cold to reset the bulbs, and winter rain to give them the liquid needed for the making of spring blooms. Being that there is no significant amounts of topsoil at our new home, we have to haul everything in by the truck load.

My plan was to use a modified top soil called "LeafGrow," which is a mixture of topsoil and ground up leaves or leaf mold. Other ingredients to be added large amounts of sand, peat moss in 3 cubic yard bales, bags of limestone, garden gypsum (40 pound bags), bags of composted manure, perilite if I can find it, and other composted matter that I happen to find as I go along.