I’m pretty sure I just dead-headed half a million daffodils. That, combined with potting up the salvia I bought yesterday, and moving around the pots in the back yard, and I feel like my back is permanently hunched over.
I really need to do something about the bulb situation in my garden. There are tons and tons of daffodils. Daffodils that have been there probably a good twenty years, and are clumped accordingly. Half of the side garden is pretty much useless to me until that foliage dies down, and the other half requires careful planning to work around the little clumps scattered here and there. I’ve worked around them for the past five years, mostly because I rent, so I don’t actually want to rip out anything that was there when I got there (despite the fact that there are some things that really need ripping, but that’s a rant, er post, for another day), but this is getting ridiculous.
The daffodils came in particularly lushly this year, and they’re actually a white variety, rather then the standard yellow. My mom asked if she could dig out some of the larger clumps and divide them, and I think that’s a splendid idea. I also think it would probably be a good idea to take the clumps out of the half of the garden that isn’t actually overrun. Mom could take those, or I could transfer them to the bed in the back garden. That bed’s so shady that I haven’t done much with it, but it’s fine in the spring for bulbs, and I’m sure the daffodils would fit in just fine (and hold down my yearly maple seedling removal run). I would also get the rogue tulip out of the back lawn and put it in that bed as well.
Once I clean out half of the side garden, that’ll give me more room to play with in the spring in that garden. I can keep the side in front of the rose bush as bulb land, and just move some pots in there once the foliage dies back. And it probably wouldn’t hurt if I took a look at some of the other bulbs in there. There’s a tulip that sends up foliage every year, but hasn’t bloomed in at least three. Maybe it just needs dividing, and that’ll allow it to bloom again. There are also some hyacinths that have developed a very open flowering habit that I’m starting to wonder if it’s due to aging bulbs. I think that whole side of the bed would benefit from some bulb airing.
The other thing I need to do is relocate the lilies. It’s very easy for them to get closed in by the daffodil and later iris foliage, and I think that’s what’s helping the lily beetle infestation along. I’ve been spraying them faithfully, but I do have bugs already this year. Maybe, if I get them into a more open area, that’ll help keep them clear.
So, that seems like a fairly straightforward plan. Probably time consuming as well. I’ve got a week off in July, and it doesn’t look like we’ll be able to go anywhere for the whole week, so maybe that’ll be a good time to take a look at things. The foliage should be well on its way to gone by then. I’ll just have to make sure I mark things well if they start dying back earlier than that.