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Daffodils Disappeared
Tomsk
Posts: 204
I planted a load of daffs and tulips together in a mixed grid a few years ago, but this year none of the daffodils have appeared. The tulips all seem fine, but they're on their own in the same soil that is now absent of all daffs.
Any likely reason for this? The daffs grew well before, and I'd have thought that any grubs in the soil would have eaten the tulip bulbs as well as the daffodils.
I also notice that hundreds of daffodils in a park near me haven't blossomed as well as previous years, though there's still plenty of stems and leaves growing. With me there's no sigh of the daffs at all. Is it just a bad year for daffs generally or coincidence?
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Weird, something ate all my hyacinths but they did at least send shoots up before they got eaten.
You did leave the leaves to die down naturally - I'm sure you did, just asking.
Its relatively unusual that nothing entirely happens but then that is nature as they say. Several things can happen here. Normally daffs cope very well being left in the ground but if they don't get the required nutrients and the bulbs are not in optimum condition after winter then they may not do anything. We have had a wet winter which is never good for bulbs, they could have simply rotted off.
Also, when you buy bulbs, they are mostly at their peak, which means that they could quite easily just die off. They don't last for ever. Where you see parkland with lots of them, new bulbs would have been forming so whilst this is going on, then energy is being diverted from the plant to the new bulbs which will result in lack of flowers. Genetics also come into play. Its not as straight forward as it seems.
I would suggest you dig an area where you know where they are and look to see what if anything has happened. If you find nothing, then they will have rotted off but you should find evidence of that. Squirrels and other animals don't as a rule eat daff bulbs.
Thanks for the replies!
Yes, I always leave bulb leaves alone until they go brown and detach themselves from the bulb. It is a mystery as they're all planted alongside the tulips, which are fine.
There must have been 40-50 daffodils and just as many tulips in a grid, and the soil wasn't disturbed by cats or foxes over the winter. The only other thing that occurred to me was that a few sweetpea bulbs are also in the same soil, but buried much more shallow. These grow after the daffs and tulips finish blooming. Is it possible the sweatpea roots somehow killed the daffs but not the tulips? The tulips heads are now on the cusp of opening. I think I'll have the first few flowers by the weekend.
The soil is very dense, but contains a lot of home-made compost and gets watered with plant feeds, so I doubt it's a problem with nutrients. I can only assume they all rotted or were eaten by particularly fussy grubs.
On an unrelated note, I've already had honey and small bumble bees flying around the garden looking for flowers for the last couple of weeks. So far, they've had to make do with one or two crocuses. It's a shame they won't have the daffs this year.
Have a dig and see what you find Tomsk. It could be a bad attack of Narcissus bulb fly:
https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=657
I am having a similar problem with my Daffs. We have a beautiful row of hundreds of daffodils which usually grow by the fence to our property. About 5 years ago a small 'bald' patch in the middle of the row appeared and every year since this has grown and spread until now almost the entire stretch of Daffs have disappeared. I don't know what to do about it or what the issue is? I fear that next year there will be no daffodils at all. We live in Hampshire.