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daffodils

Photo by Heidi Sutton

PORT JEFF IN BLOOM

In celebration of the 5,000 daffodil bulbs planted this past fall (and currently in bloom) for ‘Plant Port Yellow’ through a beautification grant received from PSEG, the Greater Port Jefferson Chamber of Commerce will host a food crawl, Blooms and Bites, featuring a selection of small dessert bites and beverages on April 30 from 1 to 4 p.m.   Photo by Heidi Sutton/TBR News Medi

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The Heritage Park Smiley Face. Photo from Fred Drewes

The daffodil Smiley Face on the north end of Heritage Park in Mount Sinai needs some freshening up. 

Located as drivers head east on Route 25A, the face has been there since volunteers of the Heritage Trust planted 2,500 daffodil bulbs on Oct. 12, 2012.

In spring 2013, the daffodils burst through the grass and began to form a smiley face.

Blooms of different varieties of daffodils started to bloom and young and old smiled when visiting the daffodils on the knoll. 

But then the blooming smiley face began to suffer.

Children wanted to pluck a flower and give it to a parent, or hold it for five minutes then cast the bloom aside. Running in and out and around the face was fun, but the plants were trampled. People would rip the blooms out to make their own bouquets.

All of this has resulted in a smiley face who looks somewhat sad looking. 

These acts have decreased the numbers of daffodils in the smiley face of Heritage Park.

The group is looking for a new set of community volunteers will plant new daffodils to heal the smiley face. 

If anyone has faded potted daffodils you could simply transplant them to the spot. 

Planting new bulbs in the fall would involve more planning and some sort of mapping where new bulbs are needed. 

If anyone wants to help the smiley face, they can contact the Heritage Trust.

Daffodils

The Port Jefferson Station/Terryville Chamber of Commerce and Old Town Blooms will host a Daffodil and Plant Sale at the Chamber Train Car, corner of Nesconset Highway and Route 112, Port Jefferson Station on Saturday, April 17 and Saturday, April 24 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. $10 per plant. While there, register for the virtual Great Daffodil Dash and pick up daffodil pins and patches. For more information, call 631-821-1313.

SPRING GARDEN

Stony Brook Camera Club member Pam Botway snapped these gorgeous photos to share with our readers  in perfect timing with Earth Day. The East Setauket resident writes, “Here are some cheery photos of spring. Reminding people to look for the good or be part of the good, during these scary times.”

YEAR OF THE DAFFODIL

Susan Wilk of Sound Beach sent in these gorgeous photos from her garden to share with our readers. She writes, ‘It’s a steller year for daffodils. Enjoy!’

‘AND THEN MY HEART WITH PLEASURE FILLS, AND DANCES WITH THE DAFFODILS’ – William Wordsworth 

Gerard Romano of Port Jefferson Station spotted these daffodils during a drive through the Village of Port Jefferson on April 30 and stopped to snap a photo. He writes, ‘I was delighted to see these beautiful flowers growing in the west retaining wall along Village Beach Road. The sun was behind them and they literally glowed in the afternoon sun.’

The white petals of Large-Cupped N. 'Roulette' are a perfect foil for the orange and yellow frilled corona.

By Kyrnan Harvey

No need to panic, there’s plenty of time to order bulbs. True, some varieties might be sold out, but the importers ship through December and bulbs can be planted as long as the ground isn’t frozen. I have, in the past, gotten away with planting after New Year’s.

Above, fragrant Narcissus ‘Kedron’ (jonquilla class) naturalized with other daffodils and myrtle

 

I once had a garden with soil on the sandy side, enriched in the early years with wood-chip mulch, which eventually decomposes into humus. Here many kinds of tulips were naturalized. They need good drainage, and no excessive irrigation, in the summer months when they are dormant, or else they will rot. If I had planted five of one variety in 1998, by 2008 bulbs had increased with offsets that were flowering size. Tulips growing informally through forget-me-nots and among many other spring flowers and shrubs — as opposed to a stiffly formal throwaway mass display planting — are incomparably charming. But they are said to be caviar to deer.

Daffodils though are 100 percent deer proof. Nor do squirrels dig for them as they do for tulips. I like to plant them in a similar style: many different varieties, each segregated from other varieties. I don’t like daffodil “mixes” — five or 10 bulbs, spaced a few inches apart, randomly arranged (meaning asymmetrically, nongeometrically). In two or three years these bulbs will have a dozen or more flowers. Daffodils increase and naturalize far more reliably than tulips.

There are many more varieties of Narcissus than will be seen at Home Depot or a garden center. Thirty years ago, when I was employed as a gardener at Mrs. Whitney’s Manhasset estate, we participated in a flower show at Macy’s Herald Square. The head gardener, my boss, presented an instructional display with examples from each of the 13 divisions of daffodils, as established by the Royal Horticultural Society: trumpets, large-cupped and small-cupped N. triandrus, N. jonquilla, N. poeticus and so on.

Above, the charming Narcissus jonquilla ‘Kokopelli’

You can find, via numerous stateside bulb importers (Brent & Becky’s, John Scheepers, White Flower Farm), splendid cultivars from any and all of these classes. Moreover, within each division, there are many variations of form and diversity of color: white perianth (the petals) with yellow or orange or pink corona (the cup, or trumpet); yellow perianth/orange cup; white perianth/white cup. The rims of the cups can have different colors too and the cups and petals can have various forms.

It is easy to fill your garden with many different long-lived daffodils, each of which has its own distinctive charm and all of which, when viewed collectively in the vernal garden, harmonize with their compadres. You can do better than merely more ‘Mount Hood’ and ‘King Alfred.’ Many are delightfully scented, which is not, by the way, the cloying odor of the florists’ tender paperwhite narcissus. If you plant a dozen varieties this year, in five years you will be able to fill vases with bountiful, perfumed bouquets.

Daffodils tolerate full sun and part shade. The pink-cupped ones prefer the latter because it preserves their color. Deep shade and water-logged soil must be avoided. Cut the spent flowers but the leaves must be left uncut, unbent, and unbraided for weeks after flowering is finished. Finding companion perennials that disguise this unsightly phase of the growth cycle — and that won’t be chowed by deer! — is a finer aspect of horticulture best left to another day.

Kyrnan Harvey is a horticulturist and garden designer residing in East Setauket. For more information, visit www.boskygarden.com.

All photos by Kyrnan Harvey

Depending on the variety, irises bloom late spring to midsummer. Photo by Ellen Barcel

By Ellen Barcel

Autumn is the time to plant your new spring flowering bulbs. They can be planted up until the ground freezes, usually in December. Buy the best quality you can afford and you will be rewarded with a great garden next spring.

Snowdrops. Photo by Ellen Barcel
Snowdrops. Photo by Ellen Barcel

• Don’t overlook the tiny bulbs. They’re not as showy as tulips and daffodils but are ideal in small areas and rock gardens. Crocuses, of course, come to mind, but I have windflowers in my garden coming back for decades. Other small bulbs include the super early white snowdrops, just four to six inches high, and anemone with their daisy-like flowers. There are also tiny varieties of the standards. ‘Lilac Wonder’ is a miniature tulip, lilac and bright yellow in color. ‘Pipit Daffodil,’ another miniature, is white and pale yellow. A unique, and small, daffodil is ‘Golden Bells,’ which produces a dozen or more flowers from each bulb. It’s just six to eight inches high and blooms in late spring to early summer.

• If you’re looking for very fragrant flowers, consider hyacinth. Although, like most spring flowers, the bloom is short-lived, their perfume is exquisite. ‘Gipsy Queen’ is a soft apricot color, ‘Jan Bos’ is a carmine-red, and ‘Woodstock’ is maroon. Some daffodils are also very fragrant. Check the package or the catalog description.

Daffodils. Photo by Ellen Barcel
Daffodils. Photo by Ellen Barcel

• If you do go with daffodils and tulips, consider at least some of the more unique ones. ‘Mount Hood’ is a daffodil that has gigantic white flowers, and ‘Green Eyes,’ also a white flower, has a green cup. ‘Exotic Mystery’ is almost completely a pale green while ‘Riot’ has reddish-pink cups. Among the tulips there are double flowers, a wide range of colors and even stripped ones. ‘Ice Cream’ is a really unique tulip. It has white center petals, surrounded by deep pink and green ones. It’s really exquisite. ‘Strawberry Ice Cream’ resembles a peony flower, in deep pink and green.

• Try some new (to you) and unusual bulbs. For example, ‘Candy Cane’ sorrel (oxalis) has white flowers tinged in red. They bloom in spring and even into summer. Another really unusual flower is the dragon flower. The bloom is maroon with a spathe that grows up to three feet. This is a big one and really unusual.

Tulips. Photo by Ellen Barcel
Tulips. Photo by Ellen Barcel

• Remember that certain bulbs are very attractive to squirrels, particularly tulips. There are several ways of handling this problem. One is to surround the tulip bulbs with daffodils. Squirrels don’t like daffodils and will generally stay away from them and the tulips they surround. A second way of dealing with this problem is to plant the tulip bulbs in wire cages. A third possibility, one I heard a planter recommend, is to overplant, that is, plant many more, possibly up to 25 percent more, bulbs than required. That way, the squirrels get some and some survive to grow in the spring.

• If you miss this planting window and the ground is frozen, there are several things you can do. The usual recommendation is to put the bulbs in the fridge until the ground thaws enough to plant them. You could also try planting them in pots and storing the pots in an unheated garage.

• The bulbs you plant this autumn will produce gorgeous flowers next spring. This is based on the professional growers’ treatment of the bulbs. They’ve grown them under ideal conditions, watered and fertilized them. To have them flourish in future years there are several things you need to do. One is to leave the green leaves on the bulbs after the blooms have faded. This is providing food for next year. You also need to add some fertilizer, again to help the bulbs for the following seasons. Make sure you water them in times of drought, even though by midsummer the leaves will have disappeared.

• Because spring bulbs basically disappear from the landscape by midsummer, they are ideal for beds where you intend to plant annuals. Plant the annual seeds in spring and by the time the bulbs have bloomed and faded, the annuals will have started to thrive.

• While you’re planting your spring flowering bulbs, consider also planting lilies, daylilies, peonies and hostas. All are perennials and will reward you next growing season.

Ellen Barcel is a freelance writer and master gardener. To reach Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County and its Master Gardener program, call 631-727-7850.