Fran Farmer wrote:

It's Sping flowering bulb time here in the southern hemisphere and I'm
wondering if I can use a chemical fertilser that says it's for flowers
and fruit on the daffodil/jonquil bulbs that are flowering now so that
they build up their reserves for flowering next Spring???

If that's not recommended, what can I do now (Spring) to make sure I
get lots of flowers next year please?

where are they planted, how much light
do they get, how much water and when, how
long is your cold season, what do you do
to them after they flower, what type of
soil, do you mulch them and any other
neighboring plants, edges or rocks?

having many hundreds of them here in
various conditions i can relate which are
doing the best.

those plants along a low north edge where
the soil is shaded by the edge but the
leaves of the plants are in full sun. the
soil is sandy loam, sloped slightly down to
the north. it is kept bare most years, but
i had beans and peas in there the past few
years (not this year). they have never been
amended or fertilized other than what comes
from the rain, the soil community and the
neighboring mowed grassy area (which contains
some clovers). the plants haven't been
divided in eight years or more and are still
blooming. we don't remove any of the leaves
until they have turned brown.

we get a fair amount of rain here so i do
not irrigate nor have i mulched these other
than what beans and peas i grew as a cover
crop. in a drier climate i would mulch them
to hold in the moisture and to keep the soil
cool. that way the plants will grow as long
as possible before dying back.

in general they need to be kept consistently
moist once they start growing again for the
following spring. if you have early fall rains
and then periods of prolonged drought then that
is not very good for them. i recall you had a
severe drought last year but i don't know how
that was in respect to their growth cycle.

also, you may want to try some earlier
blooming varieties. if your climate gets hot
and dry too quickly then the plants will abort
flowering. i have some later bloomers here
that rarely flower because they need a few more
weeks of cool weather than what we normally get.
i should move them to that cooler north facing
edge...

dividing and replanting only the largest bulbs
can help, but i rarely get to it for all of
them. most seem to not mind being crowded as
long as the rest of the conditions are ok.


songbird