The Yorkton and District Horticultural Society has their regular meeting tonight, October 19, 7:00 p.m. in the Sunshine Room, SIGN, North Street in Yorkton. Our special guest will be Anna Schaab, telling us everything we need to know about growing and caring for garlic. Hope you can join us! Members, please bring your garden photos for the group photo album!
A very kind friend (and a wonderful gardener) shared some daffodil bulbs with us last weekend. We planted them that very day, and look forward to spring when we can see those cheery blooms bobbing in the garden! If you've been getting fall garden catalogues, full of all kinds of exciting bulbs to plant now for next spring, consider the bright and beautiful daffodil!
Amazingly, daffodils belong to the amaryllis family. You might hear daffodils being called by the name "narcissus", but there is no difference. Narcissus is the botanical name, daffodil is the common name. So now that introductions are out of the way, let's chat about daffodils, the flower of friendship.
Daffodils hail from the Mediterranean, Northern Africa, and the Middle East. The ancient Greeks and Romans loved daffodils, and planted them in abundance. As time went by, the daffodils were eventually overlooked until the early 1600's. At that time, a group of Englishmen rediscovered this lovely flower, and daffodils were once again included in gardens, and spread to new gardens in new lands.
Daffodils are beautiful to look at, one of the heralds of spring! Daffodils range in size from diminutive miniatures to large, showy blooms. All varieties have a round trumpet in the centre of the flower, surrounded by six rounded petals. While we usually think of daffodils as yellow, there are many other variants in color: white, peach, and pink. Some are mixed, with a pink trumpet and white petals. Beautiful!
Daffodils grow from bulbs, and will spread over time. You might have to divide clumps of daffodils every five to seven years, but that is a happy task, because it gives you more of these beautiful flowers! If you are adding daffodils to your garden this year, here are a few tips that I read about. Plant your daffodil bulbs at a depth of three times the height of the bulb. That means large bulbs might be as deep as eight inches. I read that the planting depth is very important, because the soil over the bulbs helps to keep the bulbs upright, giving us better, stronger flowers. Daffodils like a sunny, well-drained location. Do not give them high nitrogen fertilizer. They like a lot of water while they are growing. After they are finished blooming, be patient and leave the leaves alone until they begin to turn yellow, then cut them back.
Remember, the leaves are necessary to help put energy back into the bulb for next year.
And here are some daffodil factoids: in the west, the daffodil or narcissus is the flower of vanity, because of the vain young man Narcissus who was gazing at himself so attentively in a pool of water that he fell in and drowned. In Greek mythology, his body turned into the narcissus flower. The flower is a symbol of Chinese New Year. And it is the national flower of Wales, so if you have any Welsh blood in you, wear a daffodil on March 1, St. David's Day! Best known to us, the daffodil is the symbol of hope for the Canadian Cancer Society.
Amazing what one little flower can say! Plant daffodils this fall, and enjoy a burst of beauty next spring! Have a good week!
