Every spring, the carpet of daffodils scattered at the end of Gina Constantino’s driveway captures the attention of passers-by. She has planted thousands of the hardy bulbs, which she describes as “very low maintenance for months of enjoyment.”
Frannie Espy, a fellow member of the Wachusett Garden Club, has tucked pockets of daffodils into her own “garden in the woods,” teasing spring color from the two-acre property dominated by “very tall beech trees” and pine.
Both Princeton gardeners praise the virtues of this most friendly of flowers, its delicate fluted cups nodding gently among slender green stalks.
Why? For one thing, notes Constantino, the bulbs are poisonous and therefore immune to the encroachments of “underground critters” like voles and mice that devour other bulbs, such as tulips. Nor will deer nibble on daffodil foliage. And, because the blooms appear primarily before the leaves on the trees emerge, they can be planted in either sun or shade.
We often use the names “daffodil,” “narcissus,” and “jonquil” interchangeably, though in fact the American Daffodil Society notes that only the first two are synonyms, the former the common general name for the flower and the latter its Latin or botanical name. A jonquil is actually a specific hybrid or species of daffodil.
The confusion is understandable. There are officially 13 separate divisions, or classifications, of daffodils, and within them the ADS website identifies “between 40 and 200 different daffodil species, subspecies or varieties of species and over 25,000 registered cultivars (named hybrids).”
Constantino couldn’t possibly list all of the daffodils in her yard, in part because she welcomes a wide variety, deliberately buying 100 bulbs in a mix every fall. Come spring, she says, “I always have some surprises.”
To name only a few, her collection includes the creamy white “Cheerfulness,” flocked with yellow, the large yellow trumpet, “King Alfred,” and “Tahiti,” sulfur yellow with orange and red. Both “Early Sensations” and “Ice Follies,” with a frilled yellow cup that turns white, bloom in April. The showy “Scarlet O’Hara” blossoms bright with yellow petals and a red cup.
Constantino learned to love gardening as a child, helping her father take care of the climbing roses at their Framingham home. “I got hooked,” she says. As a stay-at-home mother with three young children (now 22, 21 and 18), she turned to flowers for “my freedom, my time to myself.” While her children were napping, “I’d be out there digging,” she says.
She and her husband lived first in Westboro and then built their current home in Princeton on the site of an old farm. The property incorporates the farm’s original stone walls, providing “the perfect spot for perennials,” she says. Adding one new section every spring, she took five years to create her beds. She often gathered plants from plant swaps among garden club members, ending up with over 100 feet of perennials.
On the opposite side of the walls, she put in daylilies and “hundreds and hundreds of daffodils.” As a result, she has “six weeks of blooms” in varieties that flower from the beginning to the very end of the bulb’s short season. And, because daffodils multiply, naturalizing throughout the area where they are planted, “if you keep (adding) every year, before you know it, you have thousands.”
She relies on Bulb Booster, buying a few bags every year and sprinkling it across all of her bulb beds in the fall, to “give the plants a little more energy.”
Daffodil foliage must be left alone after the blooming period to allow plants to rejuvenate. For that reason, Constantino has planted all of her daffodils in daylily beds or ground cover.
“I can tuck the spent flowers and leaves underneath the foliage and they won’t show,” she says.
Frannie Espy faces a particular gardening challenge: making the flowers and vegetables she loves thrive deep in the heart of the woods. She and her husband and their two young children live in a log home surrounded by “a few cottage gardens.” To identify the best places for planting, she uses graph paper and a fluorescent marker to mark the “sun spots,” tracking the sun’s daily pattern over time.
She grows most of her perennials from seed and particularly likes herbs, allium and edible flowers like borage and nasturtium. In her never-ending quest to keep a vegetable garden growing even with limited sun, she regularly experiments. Last year, she planted mini-corn for popping and to make crafts with her children.
“I never do the same thing twice unless it’s been a great success,” she says.
When it comes to daffodils, she is drawn to more unusual varieties, especially very full flowers and miniature daffodils. “I’m kind of particular,” she says. “I have to really love it.” She treats them regularly with bone meal and dried blood and divides them every three or four years when they begin to grow too tightly together.
“They have done very well in the same places now for a number of years,” she says.
Despite the ease and hardiness of the bulbs, both she and Gina Constantino stress the importance of planting daffodils with care. “The soil has to be well drained,” warns Constantino. “They don’t like wet, or they’ll rot.” In addition, daffodils must be planted at least 6 inches deep.
“The rule of thumb — or at least the rule I use — is to (dig a hole) three times the size of the bulb,” says Espy.
Constantino, who currently orders her daffodils from Van Engelen Inc. in Connecticut, advises gardeners new to the flower to plant 25 to 50 initially and expand every year. “The bigger the bulb, the better it will be,” she says. “Invest by getting the best you can — you’re going to spend your time digging.”
That original investment pays off quickly, creating rivers of color, that, for most of us in New England, mean the timely end of winter’s drab palette.
“By spring,” says Espy, “we’re all so hungry for a little something.”