{"id":143,"date":"2009-04-06T06:37:14","date_gmt":"2009-04-06T14:37:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/garden\/?p=143"},"modified":"2015-11-24T07:33:00","modified_gmt":"2015-11-24T15:33:00","slug":"daffodil-pairs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/daffodil-pairs\/","title":{"rendered":"Daffodil Pairs"},"content":{"rendered":"

DAFFODIL PAIRS<\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Yesterday I was having a haircut and discussing daffodils with the stylist.\u00a0 My daffodils are up and blooming and last season at this time, hers were in the same situation.\u00a0 This season, however, is a different story.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because her husband removed all the daffodils from their garden.\u00a0 In my family, this would have been grounds for divorce, but I make it a habit not to judge others.\u00a0 I asked why anyone would do such a thing.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

“It’s the dead leaves,”\u009d she said.\u00a0 “He can’t stand the dead leaves.”\u009d<\/font><\/p>\n

As I said, I don’t judge others, but removing all your daffodils because you don’t like the dying foliage seems about as sensible as throwing out the man or woman of your dreams because he or she is less than scintillating first thing in the morning. \u00a0In both situations, there are remedies, including simply learning to live with the problem.\u00a0 People have to make up their own minds about their partners, but daffodils are definitely worth keeping.<\/font><\/p>\n

The fact remains, though, that not everyone can find it in their hearts to forgive daffodils for fading in an unattractive way.\u00a0 There are still die-hard daffodil tidiers out there who ease the transition by braiding and securing the spent foliage into tidy bundles.\u00a0 Unfortunately this deprives the plant of the ability to gather nourishment for next season’s blooms and will result in a greatly diminished showing next spring.\u00a0 Unless you want to treat your daffodils like annuals, you should leave the foliage to die back naturally.\u00a0 <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

This brings us back to the issue of fastidious gardeners and fading foliage.\u00a0 The best solution to this problem is companion planting, which involves interplanting the daffodils with perennials that emerge just as the daffodils are fading.\u00a0 Favorite plants for this application are daylilies for sunny spots and hostas for shadier places.\u00a0 Both are great choices.\u00a0 Daylilies will carry you through August, at which time their foliage will also begin to brown out unattractively.\u00a0 Hostas, if the leaves are not perforated by slugs early on, will get you right through to fall, at which time you will probably be tired of gardening for the year and not care about the less than perfect leaves. <\/font><\/p>\n

Evergreen or nearly evergreen groundcovers are even better choices.\u00a0 My hairdresser, for example, is a perfect candidate for ground hugging lamium or its kissing cousin lamiastrum.\u00a0 Both are members of the mint family and have the family traits of opposed leaves in appealing shades of medium to dark green.\u00a0 Usually those leaves are variegated with cream or silver, adding interest when the plants are out of bloom.\u00a0 Lamiastrum, sometimes known as Lamiastrum galeobdolon or “yellow archangel”\u009d, sports six inch-tall flower spikes in the spring.\u00a0 The small, puffy flowers are soft yellow and might remind you of miniature snapdragons.\u00a0 Lamium has similar leaves, but the flowers are white, shades of pink or purple.\u00a0 Both spread happily in comfortable situations and like part shade, though lamium is the better bred of the two species.\u00a0 Lamiastrum has a tendency to get out of hand, but is so pretty that it is hard to stay angry about it. \u00a0When mine gets too obstreperous and overflows the bed, I chop of the excess with my weed whacker.\u00a0 The plants don’t mind a bit.\u00a0 <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I have often written about my ongoing infatuation with big-root geranium or Geranium macrorrhizum.\u00a0 It is lovely on its own, with deeply dissected green foliage that smells of apples and pink, single-petaled flowers in the spring.\u00a0 The leaves turn a brilliant red in the fall.\u00a0 Depending on the climate and situation, most of them may die back.\u00a0 However, they will be ready to resume looking good just as the daffodil foliage begins to die.\u00a0 <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A less conventional choice for shade might be hellebores.\u00a0 They are evergreen, though it is important to cut back the spent foliage in the spring before the flowers bloom.\u00a0 The new leaves unfurl along with the daffodil petals and those leaves are large enough to cover a multitude of fading narcissus\u00a0 \u00a0Merchants offer an increasing number of new hellebore cultivars every year, so you can find varieties with flowers in just about every shade except blue.\u00a0 The only problem with hellebores is that they tend to be rather expensive, so you may have to add plants a few at a time.\u00a0 However, if you install a couple of new plants each year and divide established clumps, you can fill shade beds nicely for a reasonable expenditure.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 If you like to play it safe, you can also cover daffodil leaves with English ivy or vinca minor.\u00a0 If you happen to have a spouse who does things like removing your daffodils, you may want to recommend those species to him or her.\u00a0 Unlike an inconsiderate spouse, vinca and English ivy are easily maintained and present few problems over time.\u00a0 Of course, both are also rather hard to get rid of once they are entrenched, but life is about making tough choices.\u00a0 I would always choose the option that allowed me to keep my daffodils.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DAFFODIL PAIRS \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Yesterday I was having a haircut and discussing daffodils with the stylist.\u00a0 My daffodils are up and blooming and last season at this time, hers were in the same situation.\u00a0 This season, however, is a different story.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because her husband removed all the daffodils from their garden.\u00a0 In my family, this … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spring"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1641,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143\/revisions\/1641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}