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Lifting daffodils in Cape Town

For Trevor Hughes,

     I don't know when your daffodil season is, but assuming it's September
as it is in New Zealand and Australia, you may be able to lift the bulbs
now.  If the leaves are turning yellow, the chlorophyll has done about all
it can.  Daffodils do not need much nitrogen; they need phosphorus and a
lot of potassium.  Excess nitrogen not only results in long, weak foliage,
it encourages rot.  Fresh compost mixed in the soil also encourages rot.
Go ahead and dig up the bulbs now.  If they are soft or very small,
discard them and buy new ones next year.  If they are small but hard,
they will survive to be replanted next autumn; however, undersize bulbs
may have small or no flowers until the bulbs are grown back up to
flowering size.  How do bulbs get small?  One cause is a lack of light
or sunshine on the foliage.  Another is lack of potassium.  A third is
too short a growing period.  You really want to keep the leaves green
and photosynthesizing as long as possible to rebuild the bulb to at
least its original size and possibly bigger.  In this case, bigger
means forming offsets that grow so that eventually you have more bulbs
than you started with.  When replanting next autumn, mix a high phosphorus
fertilizer like superphosphate into the soil at the depth where the roots
will be.  A low nitrogen, high potassium fertilizer can be applied at
the surface and watered in.  If possible, arrange for the small amount
of nitrogen that daffodils need to be applied in late July so that it
is in the root zone while the leave and flower stem are growing.  Give
more potassium but no more nitrogen at bloom time.  Without nitrogen,
the flowers will be small.  The goal is to supply nitrogen only during
the month before bloom.

     Kirby Fong
     kfong@alumni.caltech.edu
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