Episode 49: Dealing With Daffodil Dilemmas

About This Episode

In this week’s episode of Ask Grumpy, Steve Bender, also known as Southern Living’s Grumpy Gardener, helps a reader handle a major daffodil dilemma. Plus, Grumpy’s plant of the week.

Question Of The Week

I've planted nearly 500 daffodils during that past four years and only 10 have bloomed. Are voles eating the bulbs?

Grumpy Gardener: I guess my first question is are you planting them in soil? Now that's essential. You must plant them in soil. So if you haven't been doing that, check that one off this next fall.

Well, you're asking another question. Are voles eating the bulbs? Voles are like little rodent creatures that look a lot like moles but they eat plants instead of worms and stuff. But it's not voles because daffodil bulbs are toxic to all rodents. You won't get chipmunks eating them, and you won't get mice eating them. You won't get rabbits eating them. You won't get deer eating the flowers. So that's not it. I think probably it could be that you're just not buying the best quality daffodils. When you go out to a garden center or a home center, you want to buy the top quality bulb you can. The bigger the bulb the better it is, and it's going to produce more flowers. If you get these little cheap dried out little bulbs, it can take them years before they get big enough to bloom. So get better bulbs and you'll get better blooms! If you have been buying your bulbs at the same place for like these four years and almost 0% have come up, try getting them from a different place. Try ordering them from a bulb company that's been around a long time and has a good reputation. And also, buy your bulbs early. Don't wait until December when they're moving out all the gardening stuff for the Christmas stuff and all you've got are these dried little husks because that's not going to do it. And finally, do not plant incandescent bulbs.

Plant Of The Week

Snowflake

We have been talking about bulbs and this is one of my favorite spring bulbs that you need to be planting. Now, it's called a snowflake. Its botanical name is Leucojum. So I'm going to spell that for you. It's L-E-U-C-O-J-U-M. Leucojum. It's also known as the snowflake. Now, what's really nice about this bulb is it blooms about the same time as the daffodils. It's a very easy bulb to grow. You can grow it in the sun, you can grow it in part shade, it'll even take good soil or soil that stays damp. It multiplies freely so you can naturalize it. And each one of the bulbs is going to send up about five stalks that are loaded with these bell shaped flowers that are white, and each pedal has a little green dot on it. And nothing bothers these bulbs. You don't have to worry about voles or mice or chipmunks or anything, or deer eating them. Nothing bothers them. They come back year after year. It's a real Southern pass-along because a lot of times you'll see these bulbs have been planted around old home sites or cemetery sites. And the people planting them are no longer around, but you still see these bulbs blooming and multiplying every year. Now, they're widely available. You can buy them at garden centers, at home centers. You can get them from a bulb catalog. But they're one of my favorites because they're practically fool-proof and they put on a really good show and they look good with everything else that's blooming in the early spring.

About Ask Grumpy

Ask Grumpy is a podcast featuring Steve Bender, also known as Southern Living’s Grumpy Gardener. For more than 20 years, Grumpy has been sharing advice on what to grow, when to plant, and how to manage just about anything in your garden. Tune in for short episodes every Wednesday and Saturday as Grumpy answers reader questions, solves seasonal conundrums, and provides need-to-know advice for gardeners with his very Grumpy sense of humor. Be sure to follow Ask Grumpy on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen so you don't miss an episode.

Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript does not go through our standard editorial process and may contain inaccuracies and grammatical errors.