Gardening : Some Daffodil Bulbs Just Keep Blooming

There are bulbs that last and bulbs that don’t. Dutch iris, freesias, sparaxis and watsonias are a few that you can plant in the fall that will come back on their own for years and years. They grow and spread into larger and larger clumps--what gardeners call “naturalizing”--with little or no help from you.

Then there other fall-planted bulbs, such as ranunculus, tulips and hyacinths, that bloom once in spring and are finished, just like an annual bedding plant. You get one glorious spring and then you pull them out.

Daffodils fall somewhere in between--some come back, some don’t--but the higher the elevation of your garden, the better the chances are.

Those lucky few who live, or keep a cabin, in the high mountains, where winters are cold and snow not uncommon, will find that daffodils grow like true wildlings, needing no care at all.

Even in the lower mountains, the Santa Monicas included, or in the foothills, some varieties will live for at least 30 years, needing little care.

Closer to sea level, the list of bulbs that will naturalize grows smaller, but there are still a few. The rest you must treat like tulips or annuals and replant each fall.

Up near Big Bear, at an elevation of 5,500 feet, Gene Bauer has covered nearly five acres with daffodils and she’s not done yet. This year she is planting an incredible 30,000 new bulbs and once they’re in the ground, she never touches them again--no digging them up or storing in the garage, no fertilizing, no irrigation, and no problems with gophers.

She got started with daffodils when she discovered that the gophers didn’t eat them. They were eating everything else she planted, including tulips and other bulbs, but gophers won’t eat any part of a daffodil.

At 1,750 feet in La Canada Flintridge, Polly Anderson grows daffodils that return every year with minimal care. She does fertilize twice a year and she irrigates the bulbs in fall, winter and spring.

At 900 feet in the Santa Monica Mountains, on a ridge in Topanga Canyon, John Sherwood has had good luck with many daffodils and his plantings are also gopher-proof.

He can show you naturalized daffodils in full flower, with a gopher’s mound right in the middle of the clump, but they haven’t touched the bulbs. Other bulbs have disappeared overnight or even before his eyes.

At 400 feet in Yorba Linda, in a virtually frost-free area where avocados used to grow, Helen Grier has learned which daffodil varieties return and which don’t. In the last 45 years, she has tried over 700 different kinds.

She too, lets them go completely dry in summer. Only John Sherwood irrigates his daffodils in summer, but he lives in fire country and needs the green buffer the other plants provide. The other gardeners let their daffodils go dry for the summer, which would seem to be one of their secrets of success. Those with drought-resistant gardens might take note.

Don Christensen, at Davids & Royston Bulb Co., suggests that the homeowner is the daffodil’s worst enemy. Planting something over them and watering in summer is sure death. “They need to rest in summer,” he said, which is why many daffodil fanciers dig up the faded bulbs each summer and store them in a cool, dry place until fall.

Even if they are kept dry in summer, most daffodils will not last long at low elevations. Christensen says they are perfect the first year--just like the catalogue pictures--fair the next, but they disappear by the third.

In the hills and mountains, it’s a very different story. Gene Bauer’s original planting in the San Bernardino Mountains is now 35 years old. Single bulbs become clumps that produce 25 to 30 flowers after only five to six years in the ground.

Bauer can grow just about any daffodil in her high mountain garden. She plants each bulb in its own hole, covering the bulbs with five to six inches of soil (except for miniatures, which are covered by only three inches). She spaces bulbs at least six inches apart so they can spread.

She does not add anything to the soil, but she does turn it with a spading fork and she removes any rocks. She begins planting in mid-September and continues well into December.

Early varieties, such as “Peeping Tom” or “February Gold” bloom at the end of February and the last finish up in May. The peak comes in late March and April.

Further down the hill in La Canada Flintridge, Polly Anderson has clumps that are 30 years old, but most of her successes are the smaller flowered kinds. It’s an impressive list none-the-less, enough to fill anyone’s garden with nodding narcissus.

Her list of no-dig, little-care daffodils includes Chinese paper whites, “Cheerfulness,” “Matador,” “Earlicheer,” “Tete-a-tete,” “Bell Song,” “Hawera,” “Jumlie,” “Quail,” “Silver Chimes,” “Golden Dawn,” “February” “Gold,” “Thalia” and “Trevithian.”

These have large flowers but still require no digging in her garden: “Ice Follies,” “Peeping Tom,” “Binkie,” “Audubon,” “Honeybird,” “Stratosphere” and “Broomhill.”

Polly Anderson plants new bulbs, or begins watering the established but dormant clumps, in November, never earlier, after the soil has cooled. She plants them in individual holes, or in trenches six inches deep, and she adds soil amendment to the dirt that goes back in the hole.

She usually sprinkles ordinary granular fertilizer on the bulb areas in November and again just as the bulbs make buds in spring, then waters it into the soil with the sprinklers. She waters the beds between winter and spring rains if the soil dries.

In late spring, she stops watering and tries to mulch the bulb areas with pine needles, if she can find enough. She never cuts the old foliage off until in is completely brown.

In the Santa Monica Mountains, John Sherwood has clumps of daffodils scattered all over his property. He says they are “absolutely hassle-free.” He planted the first eight years ago and they have been “blooming furiously” ever since.

Some of his best are “Cheerfulness,” “Professor Einstein,” “Ice Follies” and “Geranium.” Even some of the large flowered kinds such as “Carlton” reliably return. In fact, he manages to get the “King Alfred” types to return. But it’s important to note that Topanga Canyon gets quite cold in winter, cold enough to freeze citrus and colder than the 900-foot elevation would suggest.

Helen Grier, president of the Southern California Daffodil Society, grows hundreds in her low-elevation Yorba Linda garden, but only a few come back year after year with little care and no-digging.

What she has found is that you can’t go wrong with any daffodils from the Daffodil Society’s Division VII or VIII. These are the groups that include all the jonquil and tazetta-type narcissus.

All have smaller flowers but clusters of them, and the flowers are fragrant or downright pungent. Some consider these the prettiest of all daffodils and their ancestry is in the Mediterranean, a climate much like our own.

“Geranium,” “Grand Soleil d’Or,” “Minnow,” “Trevithian,” “Chinese sacred lilies” and “paper whites” are commonly available narcissus from these groups. All could be called sure fire in any garden, if they are not kept too moist in summer.

If you insist on growing large flowered daffodils, she can suggest several, including “Arctic Gold,” “Gold Court,” “King’s Court,” “Ice Follies,” “Falstaff” and “Galloway.” Don’t expect any other big daffodils, including the “King Alfred” types to last in low-elevation gardens.

Grier gardens in a heavy adobe and she adds amendments when she turns the soil. She never plants before November, which is also when she begins to irrigate established clumps if it hasn’t already rained.

Her rule of thumb is to plant the bulbs in a hole twice as deep as the bulb is tall. Every three to four years she fertilizes by raking in a bulb fertilizer and lets the rains carry it to the roots. She stops watering when the bulb foliage is half-brown. When it is completely brown, she pulls it off.

The bulbs lie dormant and bake in the warm soil all summer, but in the fall, after the first rain, they return.