I am making a new bed, using daffodil bulbs I've dug & cured from two older beds. The body of these bulbs vary in size from 1-3 inches.
Do I dig down, level the bed @ 6'" deep and scatter all the bulbs evenly .????? Won't the smaller bulbs die before they reach the surface?
How do I naturalize (plant) daffodil bulbs?
In order to naturalize with out actual naturalization, you just throw the bulbs over the area in which you intend on planting them. Where they land, is where they get planted. You certainly could dig down 6" for the entire bed but I think that might be way too much work. 6" is the proper planting depth for most daffodils. Another way of doing it is to use a bulb auger that attaches to a power drill and plant the bulbs that way.
I don't have a power drill, but I DO have a strapping grandson with a shovel!!
The rates I'm using as guidelines are 5 daffodil bulbs per square feet: the flower bed is 21.875 square feet, so I'm using 109 bulbs. . .
I never follow any sort of guideline like that when planting. I'll plant bulbs a half inch apart in groups of 10-15 sometimes. I know I'll have to dig them and divide in a few years but they look nicer like that IMO. It might look nice if you plant a few clumps of 10-15 bulbs and then a bunch of singles scattered about. Also, are you using all the same daff or different varieties?
Color me chagrined!
As these were my first attempt at gardening, I didn't know better than to plant MANY different varieties of in a small space. What began as 5 of each of 11 varieties (averaging 16 inches and most midspring blooming, most trumpets with a few large cups, many hues of solid yellow but also mixtures of yellow, white and orange, too ) has become over a hundred of SURPRISE! (translation: I now have no way of knowing the variety of a bulb).
As I live in an apartment, I can only plant in my designated flower beds; these daffodils were originally in 3 different beds (front, side and back of my apartment) and I've yearly consolidated them to now they'll be together in ONE bed! These last 3 summers I've learned: daffodils prefer the front garden and I prefer a raucous bed of daffodils, where no two blooms (next to each other) are alike!
Incidentally, this inner area of daffodils will be surrounded by grape hyacinths (new to my gardens).
It's the daffodils themselves that will decide whether they naturalize (i.e. in crease in number "naturally" by seed and bulb division) or not, but you have gotten good advice on how to plant them. You also use a hand trowel or a sturdy step-on bulb planter.
I also plant bulbs in clusters of the same kind, rather than mixing them randomly or spacing them out evenly. I think it looks better and more like the way plants grow in nature.
I think some cultivars naturalize better than others. For me good naturalizers are Ice Follies, Flower Drift, Jet Fire, Barrett Browning. Slow to form a sizable clump Pink Charm, Chromacolor.
Good to know about Jet Fire this was their first season for me and I would agree with Ice Follies.
Good to know about Jet Fire this was their first season for me and I would agree with Ice Follies
I didn't know ANYthing about what would look best, etc, when I first planted these bulbs, so I followed what I could find on the Internet (I just found DG).
I initially had clusters of 5 (all the same variety) in three different beds. When I had them dug up (for this consolidation planting), I found that these had a daughter bulb attached. . . with one even having THREE daughter bulbs attached (Grower's Pride, Carlton, Marieke, York Minster, Gigantic Star); these remained smallish, single bulbs (Pinza, Dutch Master, Bravoure, Full Throttle, Smiling Sun, Serola).
So if "naturalize" means the planted bulbs will multiply and spread: most of my bulbs naturalized without me even knowing that's what they were doing!
Thanks for the info!
That's great! Naturalizing is what looks best IMO. You'll have to post some pics when it's all in bloom.