Mar 23 2009
Jonquils
Is there anything quite as cheerful as a yellow daffodil in early spring? I have daffodils like this one and many other varieties of jonquils naturalized throughout parts of the woods, and they multiply every year.
Last spring I used a little bone meal around them just after they finished blooming. I sprinkled a small handful around each clump, and then scratched it into the soil with a small garden fork. This annual bone meal seems to really help. I haven’t always done it, thinking that if I naturalized with the bulbs, they could just make it on their own in the rich loamy soil in the woods.
Of course, the trees in the woods use up huge amounts of soil nutrients and water. A few years ago, I began treating the bulbs with bone meal, and watering them in the hot summer during dry spells, even though there isn’t any top growth to see then. The reward has been increased size and number of blooms, and the spreading has increased, too.
