Daffodils in North America’s Perfectly Flowering Bulb Gardens

Summary: Daffodils inspire festivals that celebrate North America’s perfectly flowering bulb gardens and plantings of ever more spring and summer blooming bulbs.

Daffodil Festival, Gibbs Gardens, Ballground, Georgia, on March 17, 2016: Erin Brierley (*ErinBrierley*), CC BY SA 2.0, via Flickr

The air, the soils and the waters of the Emerald Isle are world-friendliest to perfectly cultivated bulbs even though perfectly flowering bulb gardens are possible in Canada, Mexico and the United States.

Perfectly cultivated, perfectly flowering bluebells, crocuses, daffodils, hyacinths and tulips bring North America’s home gardeners springtime rewards for following proper planting procedures during the previous autumn. Perfectly grown, perfectly blooming begonias, dahlias, gladioluses and lilies can be counted among North America’s summertime rewards for respecting correct cultivational techniques during the preceding spring. Brightly colorful spring and summer flowering bulbs draw visitors as much as the National Cherry Blossom Festival to the United States National Arboretum in Washington, D.C. They embellish the Brooklyn, Chicago, Dallas, Memphis, New York and Tulsa botanical gardens, and Bonhoeffer in Washington, Lewis Ginter in Virginia and Tower Hill in Massachusetts.

Daffodil festivals furnish many reasons for visiting Arkansas, Connecticut, Georgia, Massachusetts (especially Cape Cod and Nantucket Island), Oregon, Utah, Virginia and Washington, and British Columbia, Canada.

This year’s American Daffodil Society National Convention goes from Tuesday, April 6, 2016, to Monday, April 11, 2016, in St. Louis, location of daffodil-filled botanical gardens.

The website maintained by the American Daffodil Society has helpful information and interesting facts regarding perfectly flowering bulb gardens through online resources in its library section. The website maintained by the American Horticultural Society is a similar source of educationally entertaining information on bulb-filled and bulb-relevant events, such as its annual conference.

Virginia juggles history in historic garden tours from Saturday, April 23, 2016, to Saturday, April 30, 2016, with modernity in Gloucester’s festival and Lewis Ginter’s gardens.

Perfectly flowering bulb gardens keep gardeners, tourists and vacationers busy visiting not only North America’s provinces and states but also the Emerald Isle’s counties and provinces.

Beechill Bulbs Ltd. of Beechill in Ballyduff, Tullamore, County Offaly, leads the list of bulb and flower suppliers to visit in the midlands of central Ireland. Damian and Janet, owner-operators since 2008, make waves in landscape design as co-sponsors of the National Botanical Gardens’ James Joyce Portrait from over 20,000 tulip bulbs. They note the importance of digging over the pre-planting area to free the soil of air bubbles that obstruct water infiltrating, and percolating through, pore spaces.

Horizontal spacing two to three times the bulb’s width and planting depths two to three times the height, pointed end planted upward, offer the best flowerings.

Bulbs prove to be particularly cooperative with naturalized planting in grasses when they are hand-scattered, with spacing intervals no less than the width of the bulb.

Layering qualifies as a bulb-friendly planting style for perfectly flowering bulb gardens that must fit into limited yard space or within planters, pots and window boxes. It requires a 16- by 18-inch (40.64- by 50.8-centimeter) hole with two 3-inch (7.62-centimeter) layers, one of sand and another of compost-enriched soil, under bulb-planted layers. It starts successive 2-inch (5.08-centimeter) soil-separated layers with lily bulbs on the lowest, then alliums and daffodils, then tulips, then crocuses and finally shallow-planted tuberous begonias.

North America’s perfectly flowering bulb gardens turn up in historic settings and modern events and turn out bright blooms spring after spring and summer after summer.

Cape Cod's annual daffodil festival takes place at the end of April: CapeCast @capecast via Twitter Feb. 17, 2016

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

daffodils: Erin Brierley (*ErinBrierley*), CC BY SA 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/erin_brierley/25407159134/

Cape Cod's annual daffodil festival takes place at the end of April: CapeCast‏ @capecast via Twitter Feb. 17, 2016, @ https://twitter.com/capecast/status/700065886837829632

For further information:

“April 23-30, 2016: House & Garden Tours Offered Statewide.” Garden Club of Virginia > Historic Garden Week.
Available @ http://www.vagardenweek.org

CapeCast‏ @capecast. 17 February 2016. "First daffodils of the season on cape cod?" Twitter.
Available @ https://twitter.com/capecast/status/700065886837829632

“DaffLibrary – Books, Articles and Journals about Daffodils.” American Daffodil Society > Links.
Available @ http://dafflibrary.org

“Gardening Resources.” American Horticultural Society.
Available @ http://ahs.org/gardening-resources

“Gardening Tips and Techniques.” Beechill Bulbs > Tips & Techniques.
Available @ http://www.bulbs.ie/tips--techniques-page.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 30 March 2015. "Narcissus pseudonarcissus: Graceful Spring Welcome by Wild Daffodils." Earth and Space News. Monday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2015/03/narcissus-pseudonarcissus-graceful.html