How Did My Daffodills Become Daffo-DON'Ts?

When it comes to gardening, I have the patience of a firecracker with a lit fuse. As soon as I plant the bulbs in the ground, I want the darn flower to start growing. Who cares if it’s not the right time of year. I just want to see the fruits of my labor---NOW!

That being said, this is only my second year of planting bulbs in the Fall to reap flowers in the Spring, and I have to tell you, this year was a huge failure. It all began last Fall when I noticed that the local population of squirrels was digging up my yard and running away with all my tulip bulbs. I had planted them the previous Fall, and was like an expectant father in the Spring waiting to see them all come up. And bloom they did, filling my yard with an abundance of Holland’s finest, and making me feel like I might had some sort of latent Green Thumb brewing inside of me. But when the trees failed to produce enough nuts and acorns last year, the squirrels began looking for anything as a substitute, and thus my yard full of tulip bulbs was Rota tilled with so many claws and paws that it began to look like a miniature Grand Canyon.

I became quite discouraged, until someone told me that Squirrels don’t eat the Daffodils bulbs because they’re poisonous. And since I no longer had tulips to look forward to, I decided to throw all my energy into Daffodil cultivation. I bought three bags of bulbs, which ended up being a ridiculous 150 bulbs or something. More than enough for my yard, and then some. And so I set to the backbreaking task of digging holes and distributing the bulbs all over the yard. When I was all through, I stepped back to imagine how beautiful it would all look in the Spring. That is, if I could only last through the winter.

Sure enough, in the Spring, the stems began to break through the ground in alarming numbers. I guess 150 daffodils makes more of an impression than I could imagine…especially when they are spread out as individual attractions all over the garden beds. (Only later, in January, did I learn that you should probably cluster them together in groupings.) Nevertheless, I was very excited to see so much new growth, and glad that none of the bulbs had been confiscated by a woodland creature or a jealous neighbor.

After a week or so, I was happy to see some actual blooming flowers, though not all the Daffodils seemed to bloom at the same time. In fact, some of the stems seemed downright opposed to producing anything that even looked like a bud. And that’s the way they remained for the next several weeks. No flowers, just stems. And since only a half dozen of the flowers actually bloomed, I now have a garden bed filled with nothing but stems. It’s like Mortician Addams decided to do my gardening for me.

Can someone please explain to me what I did wrong? Or is this normal? (I’m sure it’s not, but I can dream, can’t I?) Do some of these Daffodils actually produce flowers the second year of cohabitation with the ground? Or am I forever doomed to a sea of stems every Spring?

The Germination of the Garden Geek’s Green Thumb

If someone had asked me five years ago whether I had any interest in gardening, I would have laughed in their face. Being a loyal New Yorker, I’d never intended to leave the confines of the city until my crumbling body finally rotted and withered away to nothing. Even then, I probably wouldn’t leave. So gardening didn’t seem like something that would ever be included in my resume of experience.

But then, circumstances changed in my life, and I was given this amazing house in Plainfield, NJ—complete with a yard, and plenty of room for gardens, trees and other such adornments. At first, I was overwhelmed by the prospect of taking care of such a massive amount of space. After all, I came from Manhattan. The most lawn I’d ever seen was between the sidewalk and the curb, and even then it was somewhat patchy. I also had horrible memories of helping my parents weed and maintain the family garden when I was younger. After a particularly close call with the churning blades of a Rototiller, I’d made a solemn promise never to enter the confines of a garden again. (To this day, I still have vivid nightmares about being pulverized by the churning blades of an old-fashioned nut grinder.)

Naturally, I procrastinated for a long time, hoping the mounting forest of weeds, vines and other assorted yard debris would somehow transform itself into a beautiful garden all by itself. Or perhaps a family of small elves would take it upon themselves to landscape my property for me, while I sat upstairs in my room making shoes. As neither of these scenarios appeared to be happening, I ultimately decided to tackle the terrain myself. For weeks, I pulled weeds and raked leaves and cleaned garden beds, until I was finally able to see the actual property underneath all the ground cover. And it wasn’t such a bad piece of land at that. Plenty of potential. All I needed now was decide what to do with it.

Luckily, my neighbor Ramona was a wealth of information when it came to gardening, and felt no compunction about forcing…er, offering her opinion at every opportunity. She was a great help when it came to deciding what kind of plants to get, where to put certain flowers and trees, and generally giving me some great advice about landscaping. And to my shock and surprise, I found myself actually enjoying every minute of it. It’s an amazing evolution to watch something grow from seed to seedling to sprouting flowers soaring ever upwards to the sky. Truly one of life’s little miracles, and I foolishly took it for granted most of my life.

But now, I’m hooked. I love tending to the garden and making my property look as nice as it possibly can. Last Fall, I even planted tulips for the first time, and was like a silly schoolboy this Spring when the stalks actually started appearing. Not only that, but the tulips grew to about two feet and had the biggest blossoms I’d ever seen. (Which isn’t really saying much, because I’d never paid much attention to flowers before. Now I greet them with a new kind of respect.)

I also finally understand why some people say Spring is the best time of year, and why the annual rebirth of the backyard is one of the most exciting personal pleasures you can experience. I haven’t bought a pair of Crocs yet, and I don’t have a subscription to Mother Earth News, but I am definitely a born-again Gardener. Now if only I could get my bank account to have a successful germination as well. Is there a Miracle Grow out there for that kind of green?