These daffodils are great choices for Houston area
Several daffodil varieties naturalize in the Houston area, bringing repeat blooms each spring.
Buy large, firm bulbs and plant them in a sunny or partially sunny, welldraining, organically enriched bed or container in November. Plant them in groups for greater impact, 6 inches apart and with 2 inches of soil above the bulb shoulders. Place bulbs on 1 inch of sand to improve drainage. Water well. After the plants bloom, allow the foliage to die back naturally to replenish the bulbs.
Reliable perennial varieties include:
‘Carlton’: Highly popular, it has large, orange cups surrounded by bright-yellow petals; 20 inches.
‘Fortune’: A largecupped type, this crowdpleaser is a soft yellow; 17 inches.
‘Ice Follies’: It has extra-large ivory petals around a large, brightyellow cup; 18 inches.
‘Erlicheer’: A fragrant variety that also can be forced inside for the holidays, this multiflowering double has white petals and yellow cups; 14 inches.
‘Golden Dawn’: A tough, fragrant bloomer with gold petals surrounding a deeper gold cup; 10 to 16 inches.
‘Tahiti’: These exotic double gold blooms have bright orange-red centers; 14 inches.
A spring lawn
Want daffodils and grape hyacinth to spring up in your lawn? Water the lawn to soften the ground before planting time — around Thanksgiving or in early December. Gather your bulbs, a bulb digger and a bucket of clean, sharp sand. Stand near the garden where you want to see color next spring. Toss the bulbs, and let them fall where they may. Using the bulb digger, take a plug out of the lawn where each bulb has landed. Place a tablespoon of sand in each hole, then set the daffodil bulbs so their bottoms sit about 3 inches deep, the grape hyacinths about 1 inch deep.
Drop the plugs back in the holes, on top of the bulbs. Water to encourage the bulbs to begin root growth.
Avoid mowing after the foliage tips emerge in the lawn. St. Augustine is dormant in November, so there’s no need to mow. But if you overseed your lawn with winter-growing rye, plant daffodils in beds and containers.
There’s no need to fertilize bulbs when you plant them, but you can do so the following year. After the daffodil bulbs have bloomed, leave the foliage until it yellows and withers, then cut it back. Grape hyacinth’s grasslike foliage precedes the flowers and disappears during dormancy.