- Fertilizer?
I prepare my daffodil beds about three months in advance and add a 5-10-20 fertilizer at that time. After planting I also top dress, but never put the fertilizer in the hole with the bulbs.
Garden Planting Techniques
- Clumps
Clumps are the first technique that I use to plant my naturalized and garden beds. After I finished all the bed preparation as referenced in the articles above, the beds are ready and are dug deep enough for planting. All that's left is the planting itself. In planting these beds, I planted hundreds of various varieties of crocus, squill, dwarf iris, chinadoxia (blue and pink), snow drops, species tulips, windflowers, etc., and hundreds more of daffodils using my shovel.
This picture is a small clump of 5 bulbs of 'Van Sion' a 1600's vintage yellow double daffodil. The hole for the bulbs is actually in the top garden bed picture in this article, to the left of the shovel and bulb planter. A dark spot is clearly indicated.
I gave up on my drill motor and auger, as it was simpler to just dig the hole with the shovel to the depth that I needed, smooth out the bottom of the hole and insert the bulbs. I usually ended up digging an oval hole with a flat bottom. To get a random pattern, I first drop the bulbs in-mass into the prepared hole, and move the bulbs around that are too thickly planted to get a nice spread. After making sure the bulbs are upright, I spinkle soil back into the hole until most of the bulb is covered. After there is enough soil so that the bulbs will be held in place, I replace the remainder of the soil and use my foot to firmly compact the soil, but without enough weight on that foot to damage the bulbs.
- Naturalizing Daffodils in Borders
One of the techniques that I often use for naturalizing daffodils in borders is what I call the modified "clump." I call it the modified clump because I want to plant "like" bulbs together, but I want them to have a natural, instead of the formal planting look. Here's how to do it: Take the bulbs is a shallow bucket to the area to be planted, and gently scatter the bulbs directly from the bucket to the ground. Dig a hole and plant each bulb where it falls to the ground. Next year, naturalized daffodils without a pattern.
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