On Wed, 04 Feb 2004 14:20:37 +0000, Lazarus Cooke
wrote:

2 The Daffodils that I bought from Safeways at a penny each (thanks
to the advice of this NG) are sproouting all over the garden. So are my
snowdrops and the odd crocus that the squirrel has left. I've just
split some snowdrops, but I'd love all my bulbs to self-seed. Do they
do this, and what proportion is it worth leaving the flowers on for
this to happen?

While daffs *do* produce seed, many bulbs propogate most easily
through division. After 3-4 years in place, you may notice an
abundance of foliage with few blooms. If you dig, you will find many
bulbs have developed additional 'cousins', like a giant shallot.
Separate these and re-plant. Unfortunately, the ideal time for doing
this is *after* the foliage has died back into invisibility, and you
have no clue where they were/are. Which means either keeping
meticulous records or marking the areas with sticks or labels while
the foliage is still growing.

Getting flowering daffs from seed takes 4-7 years. A bulb division
usually a maximum of 2 yrs, depending on size. I believe my record was
27 bulbs from one (after no lifting for 4-5 years). Of course, many of
these were quite small, but there were at least a dozen good sized
ones well worth re-planting.

Crocus, too, multiply by bulb, and quite enjoy being dug up and
resettled. I've never had a day's luck with tulips. Mine tend to
bloom one year, send up a couple of leaves the next, and then
disappear. Others report certain varieties that reliably re-bloom and
multiply.