Garden Centre

Monday, April 16, 2007

Tie me daffodils down, Sport (or don’t, as the case may be)

Do you do this? I’ve got to admit it looks very dainty. The daffodils in my garden are an untidy lax mess by comparison. The thing is, go where you will, and ask whom you like, everybody will tell you this is a very bad idea – looks nice, serves no good purpose, in fact.

Why? Well because it’s a question of nutrition. When any bulb has put out flowers, it will have shrunk to a tiny size, as a bulb is essentially nothing more that a warehouse holding flower-making components, when the job is done, there’s nothing left of the bulb. But we want it to flower again next year, and for this to happen, the warehouse will need to be replenished with food – which in bulb terms, comes in the form of starch. This is the purpose of the leaves, making food to build up the bulb to a decent flowering size. If you cut or mow down the leaves too early the bulb will not have stored enough starch to get it through next year’s flowering season. This is also why we leave bulbs in the ground after flowering, even if we’re going to have to lift them before winter, like freesias and gladioulus – it gives them a chance to build up their stores. Although tying the leaves together makes them tidier while they die down, it simply reduces the amount of light they receive, which means the photosynthesis is reduced and that means there is less work going on to feed the bulb. To extend the metaphor, we’ve reduced the warehouse staff to one man and his dog, who aren’t going to be much good at filling the shelves, and next spring we’ll be wondering why the flowers are so wimpy.

Regularly removing the dead flower heads, on the other hand, is beneficial to next year's flowering as the daffodil does not put energy into seed production. If you are a fussy gardener, like ‘himself’ then restrain yourself for six to eight weeks after the final daffodil flowering and you can cut off the withering leaves. For this task I use tree loppers which mean you can cut at ground level while standing up and then rake the leaves up with a light rake, no stooping or crawling around in the borders. Okay, it’s not the purpose for which loppers were created, but then, daffodils weren’t born to be tied either, were they?

Labels: garden flowers, garden tips, spring

The All Seasons Gardener at 1:51 PM 2 Comments

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