With Thanks to: https://www.gardenrant.com/2019/04/brent-heath-knows-his-daffodils.html
I thought I knew how to grow daffodils – since that doesn’t? They’re perennial, critter-proof, drought-tolerant, and so on. Or so I believed until Brent Heath, co-owner of the beloved bulb firm Brent and Becky’s, disabused me of my assumptions from his recent discussion at Brookside Gardens outside DC.
Traveled the planet and having been in the bulb biz, Brent knows his stuff. Here are my take-aways out of Brent’s really informative talk.
(Incidentally, I met Brent if we kids vacationing with our families at Nags Head, NC. My sister turned into friends, or anything like that.)
- Daffodils aren’t great pollinator plants. It hadn ’ t occurred to me that that included pollinating insects although I understood that creatures don ’ t consume them.
- They’re not native to the Americas, rising in the wild only in Spain, Portugal, France and Italy. They were attracted here sewn. Bulbs could endure months that way, enabling immigrants whenever they got here, to grow just a small something from home.
- Daffodils want sun to keep prospering. Thus which ’so why some of mine harbor ’t produced flowers long-term. As Brent mentioned, folks proclaim, “Oh, but that my daffodils DO get sun if they’re blooming, until neighboring trees have leafed out! ” But that’s not enough; they want sun for the 8 weeks after they blossom – you know, the next year that period when you want to remove the foliage but understand it ’ ll reduce the blooms.
- Daffodils also need to get fedup, and Brent recommends great aged compost. I really don ’t believe I’ve ever done that but will now since Brent (who ISN’T selling me a fertilizer product) advised us .
- Daffodils are greatest chosen , not even cut . Brent says to snap them off as near the floor as you can.
- The 4th hottest daffodil is the Dutch Master, the 3rd is Ice Follies (which multiply very well), and that I didn’t catch numbers 1 and 2. Damn my own note-taking!
- Hydbridizing takes patience, like 5-7 decades of it to receive a single bloom on a new daffodil. Brent’s talk included images of varieties which are clearly show-quality and others not, and don’t ask me to remember which are which or why.
Above, ancient tulips and hyacinths were blooming that day at Brookside.
In the immortal words of Brent Heath: “Plant bulbs and harvest smiles. ”
Shot: stays of a Quinceañera celebration in the gardens before in the day.
Brent Heath Knows his Daffodils initially appeared on GardenRant on April 11, 2019.