On 25/2/07 23:33, in article , "MadCow"
wrote:

In message , Sacha
writes
On 25/2/07 07:26, in article
, "Dave Poole"
wrote:

Sacha wrote:
Every spring we have daffodils growing on top of the hedges bordering the
lanes near the house. There are masses of them. But this year we've
noticed most particularly that the stems are shorter. Our theory is that
this is because they've come out earlier than usual - anyone else got any
ideas?

I've not noticed this with the daffs growing in local hedgerows, but
most of those growing around here are naturalised garden varieties

I don't think it's an optical illusion because these are growing literally
on top of the hedges and have no other planting with them, other than the
trimmed back twiggy bits of the hedge. It's the normal winter/spring set up

Wild N. pseudonarcissus grow taller if they're growing through dead
ferns/bracken than if there's just very short rabbit-nibbled grass. This
makes sense if you're a daffodil. They don't all flower at once, and
the later ones aren't usually taller.
I don't think yours are short just because they're early, but maybe
because being early means they aren't competing with any other growth,
including their own leaves.

Could be they've trimmed the hedges shorter this year, I suppose. These are
the very thick Devon hedges which are sometimes behind a stone wall and are
really very dense. This particular stretch is quite short, probably about
5' to 6' or less but in other parts of our lanes they are 12' high or more
and those don't get daffs on top of them, obviously but growing out of the
side of them where their own feet are in the earth. I must say that our
hedgerows are a glory atm. We have snowdrops, daffodils and primroses all
out together and the lovely thing is that the primroses keep emerging until
around May.

--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
http://www.discoverdartmoor.co.uk/
(remove weeds from address)