On 09/05/2014 12:16, Janet wrote:
In article ,
says...
About ten years ago when relaying a section of lawn I planted a whole
sack of yellow daffodils in the hope that they would naturalise. The
first couple of years they provided a glorious display but over the
years less and less have flowered.
Assuming they still produce healthy leaves, non flowering could be
caused by overcrowding / starvation.. especially if you planted them too
shallow.Daffodils vary considerably in how how much hardship they will
tolerate.. some types are almosr indesctructible and others relatively
shortlived.
I doubt that they were planted too shallow. I took the opportunity of
relaying the lawn to dig out a deep area, probably about a spade depth,
scattered the bulbs at the bottom and refilled before sowing grass on top.
I did wonder whether they might have been rotting because it can get
quite damp down there. But then suddenly all of these pop up.
You could dig up the non-flowerers (now is fine, leave the leaves on)
gently tease the bulbs apart and replant them more spread out in a
different place. There should be 5" of soil above the top of the bulb
(don't worry about the leaves being deeper than before.). Scatter some
growmore on the soil surface. It may take them a couple of years to
build up enough strenth to start flowering again.
I may well do that if I can dig deep enough without completely ruining
the lawn.
Daffodils don't "revert". The "new" flowers you describe sound like
one of the poeticus narcissi... one of the oldest and most persistent-
surviving varieties. Maybe those bulbs were smaller when planted and
have taken a while to reach flowering size. But they have never been,
ones that produced big yellow flowers.
I should have been a sack of just the yellow ones - but I wouldn't
guarantee it.