Create bursts of spring sunshine with daffodils
Five from the 12 categories of the daffodil family you could add to your garden this fall
A colourful bouquet of mixed daffodils is gracing my desk as I pen this week’s column — they have perfumed my office with the scent of spring.
Coming into the third week of April, the daffodils are at their peak, along with the star magnolias, forsythia, early tulips, hyacinths and periwinkle. Last week’s unseasonably warm (OK, hot) weather really pushed the season ahead.
While the daffodils are still in their glory, let’s take a closer look at five categories (there are 12 in total) in the daffodil family.
You may want to consider adding a few extra daffodils to your own garden this fall — there are many beautiful, fragrant and very hardy varieties available.
Large-cupped daffodils
Among the most popular group of daffodils, large-cupped daffodils are easy care, include a wide range of coloured cups (including white, yellow, pink and peach), and a variety of cups shapes such as flat, ruffled or trumpetlike. One flower per stem, they are easy to naturalize in the home garden and multiply.
Some of my favourites include Narcissus Gigantic Star with huge, brilliant yellow flowers borne on very sturdy stems in mid-late season, and have a gentle fragrance.
Narcissus Ice Follies, with creamy white petals, a frilled, lemon yellow cup and a sweet fragrance, is a great candidate for naturalizing. Over the years, they have proven to be both heavy bloomers and vigorous growers. Their delicate colouring works well with early pastel-coloured tulips and hyacinths. Another popular white daffodil is Mount Hood with creamy white petals and a soft yellow trumpet that fades to snow white. This variety has been popular since its introduction pre-1938 and has won numerous awards. Offering large, showy flowers, upright form and a slight fragrance, Mount Hood has naturalized in my Niagara garden.
New to my collection is Holland Sensation with exceptionally large flowers, lemon yellow ruffled trumpets surrounded by six white petals; the base of each petal features a soft glow of delicate yellow. They have long, sturdy stems and just a hint of fragrance.
Included in the large-cupped daffodils group is the award-winning Salome with creamy petals and a primrose yellow cup that softly fades to peach-pink. Pink Parasol features ridged, creamy white petals and a deeply ruffled apricot-pink cup. Both are sweetly fragrant and make exquisite cut flowers.
Small-cupped daffodils
More refined than its showy cousins, small-cupped daffodils such as Narcissus Barrett Browning have been popular since their introduction in 1945. With clean white petals and a showy orange-scarlet gently ruffled cup, this delicate-looking daffodil is surprisingly sturdy in my home garden, stubbornly appearing year after year in an inhospitable patch of soil beneath our gas meter. Every year I intend to move the clump after it dies back and year after year, I forget them until they flower again — that’s what I call dependable. On the plus side, I have no qualms about spoiling the display and cutting the flowers to enjoy indoors.
Double daffodils
Ruffled, romantic and sweetly scented, double daffodils don’t look like classic daffodils. The only double daffodil in my collection has a double row of pale yellow pointed petals and multiple rows of ruffled golden yellow trumpets in the centre. Double daffodils are sometimes described as having the form of a carnation or peony.
The closest namesake to my double narcissus is Golden Ducat, an heirloom daffodil with pointed petals and sturdy stems. My double daffodils have flowered mid-late spring for more years than I would care to admit, and were planted long before I was keeping track of plant names. In a wet spring, the packed flower heads soak up the water like a sponge and the stems collapse. The clumps return year after year, but are not anxious to increase their numbers.
Tazetta daffodils
Narcissus Geranium, another multiple award-winning variety, bears clusters of three to six flowers per stem, many bulbs will also produce multiple stems. White petals and a small, orange ruffled trumpet with a yellow eye are held strong on sturdy stems, Geranium blooms late in the season, the last daffodil to bloom in my Niagara garden, and makes beautiful, fragrant cut flowers.
New to the garden this season, a drift of Tazetta daffodils, that were labelled “Geranium,” and have a similar multi-flower form, but have lemon yellow petals and a flat, rounded cup in tangerine orange with a green throat. Paired with orange Emperor tulips, they are making a pretty show this week.
Cyclamineus daffodils
Elegant in form, the Cyclamineus or miniature daffodils feature small flowers, one per stem, with gently swept back petals and straight trumpets. Very tolerant and easy to naturalize, they work very well in containers or garden beds.
Tête-à-tête are one of the most popular miniature daffodils for forcing in pots, and are usually available in March and early April. As soon as they appear in the marketplace, I treat myself to several pots of the golden yellow daffodils. They decorate the Easter table and fill the containers on the patio and front porch before being planted out in the garden. They return reliably (and multiply) year after year. Just be sure to plant them in the garden when they finish flowering, let them die back naturally, leaving the leaves intact until they age to brown. In a sunny garden, they are always the first daffodils to bloom each year.
Narcissus Jetfire, with showy yellow reflexed petals and bright reddish-orange trumpets, also belongs to the Cyclamineus group. Blooming early to midspring, they are both fragrant and self-sufficient, spreading to form a generous clump in just a few years time. They also work well in containers.