Boosting Your Bulbs - Daffodils & Other Bulb Plants

 One of the tasks I have decided to dedicate myself to this year is boosting our Daffodil bloom next year. I have done some research into the methods of doing this and decided to tackle them thoroughly to see if it makes an improvement. The general gist of it is that you need to do whatever you can to make the bulb (the energy storage of the plant) as big and strong as possible.

 From the research I have carried out, the 3 things that make the biggest difference to blooming success are the following.

1. Deadheading the spent flowers once they have begun to die.
2. Thoroughly feeding the plant once the bloom has finished.
3. Making sure that the leaves are left on as long as possible once the bloom has finished.
4. Clearing surrounding foliage.
   

 Deadheading

 Daffodils will often begin producing seeds in the little pods on the back of the flower once they have been pollinated. The seed pod requires a lot of nutrients and energy from the plant, and as such this means that less energy and goodness goes back into the bulbs.

 I tend to remove the flower heads as soon as the flower begins to die. This means the seeds has as little time as possible to begin sapping energy from the plant.

 The next thing I like to do is remove the head just above the little joint point on the top of the stem. This will mean that the seed pod (shown by white arrow) is removed fully, but it will also leave a closed top on the end of the stem rather than leaving the tube open to water. (I am unsure if this makes a difference overall, but I do it just in case). Deadheading can be carried out by either pinching the head off, or using a pair of scissors to get a nice clean cut.

The red line shows the point at which I like to cut / pinch off the head.

  Finally, make sure that you leave as much of the flower stem as possible. This section also photosynthesizes and creates energy for the bulb, so you may as well leave it on.

Leaving a closed top to the stalk, I believe, reduces the likelihood of rot if water gets in.

Feeding

 Feeding a Daffodil (or bulb plant), wasn't something I had thought about until recently. Logic would state that during the bulb formation period, the plant requires a lot of nutrients to pack into the bulb.

For ease, I have often just gone around with a watering can filled with liquid plant food. I do this as I dead head the plants so that I know which ones I have already fed and watered.

 Another good option is to use slow release plant food or good quality mulch / compost spread around the base and then watered in. The nutrients will slowly mix into the soil and provide a boost for the bulbs.

 Leaving the Leaves!

 This is one of the biggest reasons for bulb plants to end up "coming up blind" the following year. The term "Coming up blind" is used when a plant comes up, but does not produce flowers.

 Often you will see people either cut down the leaves, or tie the leaves up once the flowers have been deadheaded. Doing this does neaten up the garden, but it also seriously hinders the plants ability to rebuild the bulb and produce a good storage of energy through the winter. The weakened bulb then fails to produce flowers the following season.

Removing Nearby Foliage

 Finally, the next thing you can do to significantly help your Daffodils (or other bulb plants) is to make sure that they are getting a good source of sunlight! 

 For example, the Daffodils in our garden are planted where various other weeds and plants like to compete. (often the dreaded ground elder and goose grass).

 Once the flowers have bloomed, and the heads have been removed, it is a good idea to go around the plants and remove as many competing weeds as possible. This allows a greater amount of light, helping to build up the bulbs energy storage.

 

The Daffodils above are surrounded by encroaching plants. These will sap light and nutrients from the recovering plant.

Clearing around the base (if the encroaching plants are weeds) will mean more light and nutrients for the Daffodils.