Moving daffodils

I planted a new bed last fall of fairly short perennials, and added some fairly short bulbs. Fine. But I overlooked some tall daffodils that were in the bed, and while they are lovely bulbs they look awful in the reconfigured bed. Now I want to remove just those tall ones without digging up and disturbing the whole bed. I tried prying out a single bulb with a trowel, but wasn't able to. Are there tricks of the trade? Should I push a manual bulb planter over the bulb site and pull it up that way?

Try wetting the area thoroughly all around the daffodil plant and using a weeder also known as a dandelion digger, it looks like a notched screwdriver that you can introduce it deep in the ground around the daffodil clump, loosing the soil around and pull them out gently.

Have a prepare site to replant your daffodil immediately.

Thanks Cristina. I have plenty of dandelion diggers -- I tried something very similar and simply couldn't get the bulb to budge. The problem is I don't want to disturb neighboring plants.

Try a large garden fork. The one the size of a shovel. It will give you better leverage, and unlike a shovel it won't slice your bulbs.

Donna: The reason I can't do that is the daffodils are lodged very tightly against (or under) perennials I'd rather not disturb. I am not a chemical user, but I may have to resort to Round-Up. Sigh.

Oh, I see. Bummer!

I remember not paying attention to my Mt. Hood daffs for a while at my former home. They multiplied so intensely they were rising from the ground and could be seen at the surface. I was able to remove 30 or so without making a dint in the ones below. This started out as ten Mt. Hoods from Old House Gardens. Watch out for those heirlooms!

Wow! My problem is I totally forgot about these big daffs, and planted some small perennials on top of them. Now the leaves from the daffodils obscure the perennials, and just don't play nicely with what I had intended to be a bed of shorter plants.

Happy, I see this as an easy solution. For me, I cut the daff leaves level with the height of the surrounding perennials. My perennials are all tall so soon enough they will grow above the trimmed daff leaves. I would assume this would work for your situation too.

Hmm. A great idea, but won't solve my particular problem. I didn't mention that I also included a lot of short daffs in the same bed (again, forgetting that I had planted the tall ones). So the tall ones towered over the short ones. The look was not pleasing to the eye...

Hmm...well what about burrowing in from the side?

I hope that you will not need to use Round-Up, it will kill / affect all the plants you have one on top of the others ....

I would just brush the Round-up on the foliage of the too-tall daffs. Believe me, I generally eschew Round-Up and other toxic chemicals -- it has been years since I used any at all. But there are some problems I just can't solve. The main reason I will have to use Round-Up this year is Aegepodium which I have been unable to get rid of by weeding - it winds its roots around daffodil foliage and iris tubers making it impossible to extricate the Aegepodium. So I'll be out there with a paint brush.

I join Cristina and Donna in suggesting using a large garden fork after wetting w/ hose or after heavy rain. Can you share what perennials you are not wanting to disturb? In the event they heave up while you are forking out the bulbs, it seems like you could step on the perennials to put them back in place. Unless teenie tiny root system. I don't think you can cause permanent damage. I have accidentally yanked many plants I did not mean to disturb, rearranged back in the hole and they didn't skip a beat. Can't think of anything that delicate, unless extremely young

I just put in 20 or so Platycodon grandiflorus "Sentimental Blue" and also some small daffodils -- don't remember which off the bat -- maybe Tete a Tete. I suppose I could dig all that up again....

wait til its really wet. I'm constantly battling elm seedlings that have a taproot from here to China and when pulling them when it rains (even if I need to shovel it out b/c so deep) it comes out a lot easier than when dry.

After a rain, it will be done before you know it and you will quickly forget what a supreme pain it was to redo.

Oh, you don't want to dig up the platys unless you really must. They are deeply taprooted and unless you put them in quite recently you will just sever the taproot.

Donna: I know -- that is why I was trying to figure out how to budge the big daffodils (the small ones are just fine). I just put the balloon flowers in last fall.

Ah.. I'm sorry I didn't realize that earlier.

So I may be back to using Round-Up. The big daffodils just look absurd where they are. I'll give it one more try the next time it rains.