First Daffodils 2010

I have these scattered through the yard, so when spring is here, all I have to do is walk around the yard to get the lofty fragrance.

I don't remember the name of this one...

Daffs blooming on my front yard slope.

Same daffs

Daffs blooming in front of the Serviceberry shrubs.

Tracey, congratulations on your beautiful hyacinths! Probably my favorite bulb to first welcome in the spring ;-)

Rita, evelyn, great daffodils. Rita, love the look of your slope - I assume the space between the daffs at the top and the daylilies at the bottom is filled in with lilies"

^_^

I think this is the only little cluster of daffs I have left

It is lovely to see all of your spring flowers. I am afraid I will have to show you flowers from 3 days ago and earlier, as it has been a rain/snow mix all day....very muddy. I can't remember when I have seen so much mud.

I am glad that you all are able to enjoy the sunshine...as we have seen very little of it so far this spring.

Steve- There are two rows of daylilies at the very bottom running along the stacked stone wall. Directly in back of those daylilies are lots of oriental lilies. They are in a row. You can't see them yet in the picture, although the lilies are starting to push thru. Then the rest of the space was taken up with a big planting of zinnias last year. I plan to do the zinnias again this year.

I would like to plant that bare ground in daffs this fall so that I would have spring color on almost the entire hill. Then I would still plant the zinnias because it would hide the daff folliage. Plus the zinnias get planted only in May. Its still too cold for them.

I finally have daffs to share! This is Sempre Avanti.

Scarlet Royal

Ice Follies

This is a tiny one that I bought in bloom several years ago. (Anybody know what it is? The blooms are only about 1.5 inches wide).

The snow has melted...again! The ground is super-saturated and there was some sunshine in the morning from about 8 to 9AM...then the clouds are back...not so much wind today, but still cold and damp. What do all of you in zones 4,5, and 6 do when the weather stays cold in the spring? Sorry, I sound like such a wimp, but we are usually on the other side of the spectrum as it is usually too hot, too fast...and I am not ruling it out, as it could happen, after the other weather leaves.

This is the rain/snow mix from yesterday...

some earlier in bloom...

and even earlier...

evelyn, the daff w/ pink cup that you posted on 4/12 is gorgeous.

I think I'm falling in love w/ hyacinths.

This tulip is just amazing...the most perennial of them all. I bought them many years ago and they keep coming back, even when they were planted in the wrong place. Right here they come through compacted hard clay soil, deer invasions, no fertilizing, actually no care at all. I hope to dig them up this year and put them in a better spot, as they deserve it. 'Red Riding Hood' tulip. Maybe if I can put them with the daffs they might fare better...

Evelyn and Lisabees, so nice to see your lovely flowers.

An oldie but a goodie, Mrs. Backhouse. An antique, and an absolute worker, blooming like mad every year and spreading in a lovely pattern.

Mount Hood, now morphed completely white. It starts out with a yellow cup.

Vie en Rose is just beginning. It will be taller in a few days.

Tracey, my ancient hyacinths are coming up too. These King Codro doubles were put in years ago. They disappeared, I dug up the bulbs, replanted them in fresh soil, and for two years now they have bloomed almost as big as new hyacinths. Can't figure it out, but love it. They seem to have disappeared from commerce.

Donna, what wonderful daffodils! I Especially LOVE your Mount Hoods. They look spectacular against your green background. I am so glad your yard is finally bursting into bloom.

^_^

Donna, I love the daffoldils too. Especially the Mount Hood. I am going to have to get some of those myself.

What crocus is this? Does anyone know?

Steve and Rita, thank you. I have read that Mt. Hood is one of the ones that works well in the south. It's been around forever. I fell in love with it as soon as I saw it - 99% of people here grow yellow daffs. I love that big trumpet look in white. It has multiplied so well that I have it in three sections. I started with FIVE from Old House Gardens. I remember that the bulbs were enormous. You don't need a lot when you order bulbs of that quality. Anchoring the bed is two Sea Foam roses. Sea Foam blooms all season, and its drought tolerant and disease resistant.

The sides of my yard that are the most exposed I like to use to grow things that are attractive to passersby but low maintenance. So this bed has nepeta snowflake, avalanche white petunias, nicotiana alata, a couple of Silver Sunburst trumpet lilies (a really easy and strong multiplier) and then later in the season verbena bonarienses takes over. The seeds are left from the year before, and then I get my hummingbird and butterfly friends.

Great at night if you come home in the dark. My available space is so small that I have to pack to get someimpact. But I really love the way you two have lots of space and pack anyway. It's sooooo cool!

I love to pack in things. The crowded look is for me.

I just can't stand the one plant in a sea of brown mulch look with then being spaced far apart. Now to each his owm but thats just the way I do it here. I really am going to get some of those Mount Hood daffs this fall.

I hear you Rita. The neighbor across the way must have planted daffs in patches of singles - no one's soil could be that bad. So she had exactly what you described - 3 to 4 daffodil clumps surrounded by large areas of mulch. I started to offer her some of mine but it occurred to me that she might prefer it the way that it is.

And how do you raise the subject without implying that it looks awful?

Well, the daffs should multiply so should not stay that way forever. I have learned that just because I like something a certain way, doesn't mean that other people agree.

When I first started mulching heavily with fall leaves, I would have neighbors ask me when I was going to rake all that mess out of my garden. Boy were they surprised when they found out not only were those leaves not leaving but that I keep adding more.

Same story with my garden sections mulched with straw. One person asked me what I had done to all my grass. He was horrified. So everyone has their own ideas.

I have lots of roses but I totally ignorned the advice of the rose experts that said 3 feet was overcrowding roses. Four to five feet needed for air flow. Well, my roses are packed together planted 12 to 18 inches apart in groups. People constantly ask me what I do to my roses to make them look so good and so healthy. So much for air flow.

So I just do what works for me.

I really have plans to put in hundreds of bulbs this fall. I mean hundreds of tulips, then hundreds of daffs and so forth. Got some ordered and going to order more. I hope to be able to get them all around the yard.

She likes the way it looks. That's all that matters. I think small clusters of daffodils look nice. I don't know about 1-3 daffodils per cluster, but clusters of 8-15 look nice, especially when they're done that way in a wooded area. Personally I like to see mulch in between plants. It makes it much easier to water and weed when you can get in between things without stepping all over everything. It makes a garden look neater and better kept to me. As you said, we all have our own tastes.

I much prefer to cluster things and have them really closely together while putting accress maybe front the front and back. Truely, I would never pick on the way anyone else did things. There are as many different garden looks as there are gardens. As long as you like your garden, that is all that matters. If I would have done it differently doesn't even count :-))

I think I made the same mistake with species crocus in the beginning. I had no idea that 100 is, well, nothing scattered across a lawn. I think it's just inexperience. And, yes, it is 1-3 per clusters, and there are several feet between clusters. I truly don't think that was her intention. I'm waiting for her to make a comment about mine, and then I can guiltlessly offer her some of mine.

I tend to put pine bark mulch between my clusters, but I really admire the exuberant look. It definitely makes it easier to weed. I once read that you shouldn't make your beds wider than you can reach across but I also like very much the wild party look. Something for everyone!

This message was edited Apr 17, 2010 7:49 AM

Donna, your Daffs are gorgeous! I'm so loving Mrs. Backhouse! I got a "thang" for peach cupped Daffs, especially if they're vigorous. Mt.Hood is such a sturdy beauty, I have a couple of clumps I'll soon divide and spread more through the gardens.

As much as I love the look of a garden with neatly separated clumps of blooms, I just can't do it. I'm too much of a plant pig, and I just love it burgeoning and crowded, LOL. I kick myself a lot when I'm trying to find a foothold to weed, but I can't stop myself.

A couple of years ago I planted daffodil clusters throughout the woods at my parents house. I thought I was being generous in putting 5-6 in a cluster. When I was up there last spring, I saw them bloom and said to myself "that is it"? What I thought was a big cluster was not much at all. If I did it all over again would do so with at least a dozen, and maybe more, in each cluster.

Nothing wrong with a wide flower bed, if you leave yourself enough small spaces to weave your way through it. Have some wide and some narrow flower beds, but the narrow ones fill up too quickly. Like the wide odd shaped ones, because that width gives you the option to layer things of different heights.

LOL . Like the "wild party look" statement. That's funny. I do the "wild party look" with color combinations. It usually starts with a certain color theme for a portion of a flower bed. Then there's a completely different color theme somewhere else in the bed. That empty space in between is the problem. I'm left scratching my head trying to figure out what colors can I put in the middle to make it all make sense. Usually just give up and call it "color chaos".

Yeah, I've learned my lesson here on 5 acres of yardspace- I gotta plant several to make any impact. Thankfully I'm patient, and Daffs multiply fast too. It was a blessing when I moved here that my bulbs from my previous garden had multiplied well, so I was able to plant considerably larger clumps when I brought them here. Same with a lot of the other perennials- I divided them since they were dug, and planted larger groupings.

Love the "wild party look" description too! A good description of my butterfly garden- I've called it a colorful chaos too, LOL.

LOL your comments all crack me up. I like the crowded "wild party" look as well, but I take it to another extreme - I plant perennials too close together when they're small in that it "seemed like a good idea at the time" - unlike Gemini I am NOT as patient as I should be and then I regret it because as the stuff matures it gets too crowded. I am working on a happy medium and have gotten better, LOL. Tomorrow in fact I have to dig some daylilies out of one of my beds because everything else is overshadowing them and it's all so tight it can't breathe properly. I NEVER have the problem of "buying too little" when it comes to bulbs!! haha

My problem is follow the spacing directions on the back of seed packs. It might tell you to thin the seedlings to 12" apart. So many times when you do that the plants seem to far apart, even after they mature. They never really fill in and maximize the use of the space. The directions should probably state "Thin to 12" apart so the plants have plenty of room to breathe, or space to 4" apart if you want the WiLd PaRtY LoOk. LOL

Count me among the 'wild party' crowd, LOL!! Oh, and I should join the plant pig anonymous group, too! Y'all have made my morning:))

You know what they say about birds of a feather. Its funny when a newbie asks about a pic, and I have to answer "this is what you're supposed to do, but this is what I do- it's technically all wrong and a real pain, but there ya go", LOL.

Jon, I find most seed pack directions poorly lacking, some have the same generic directions on almost everything. While with a lot of plants I do eliminate immediate competition (as we've all seen the impact on plant performance that garden cultivation offers, as opposed to how a plant performs in nature), I do enjoy the look of plants being allowed to do their own thing among each other, like they do in nature.

..hmmm...that's probably just a rationalization for my piggishness, LOL.

Funny:) Gotta take those 'close up' photos...

I like to rationalize my piggy impulses, too...Stuff like "It was on sale"..."I really need that color'...fill in the blank, lol!

Oink!