Dear Jane and all,

Unlike you I am definitely a Narcissus lover, but I grow all mine
out doors and in the ground near Kansas City.

I have maybe 75 different varieties or probably more. Because I
have the room I have planted between 10 and 300 of each. Most are
around10-15, but a number are 100 and more. I grow those commercial kinds
mostly because I can’t grow many species. My only species is N. obvallaris
which self sows lightly. For years I grew those sweet bulbicodium hybrids
like ‘Kholmes’ and other of the Conan Doyle names. I grew the impossible N.
polybulbos for years too, but keeping narcissus in pots was too much. I
cannot leave any bulbs in pots outdoors due to extreme winter cold. So I
miss on some of my favs.

I do grow a wide variety of named hybrids from the obvious large
and small cups to the multi-flowered, spit corollas, miniatures, poeticus
and more. In the front of the house I planted about 300 bulbs of ’Suzy’
because I got a good price and now there’s 300 clumps and it is a late
bloomer to extend the season. I have no idea how many ‘Mt Hood’ I grow, but
it seems to be hundreds all around t he house. One of my favs is ‘Pink
Charm’ Maybe a couple hundred. I sometimes grow a few in pots. This year
about 50 ‘Yellow River’ with huge brilliant yellow flowers. Those bulbs
will end up in the garden by. fall.

I also enjoy some special bulbs I got from Steve Vinisky of Cherry
Creek Daffodils and some choice bulbs from Harold Koopwitz, the late Sid
Dubose and Dave Niswonger. Friends share and trade others. If money were
no object I could easily buy dozens more and I’d love to be able to obtain
some reliably hardy ‘Hoop Petticoat’ types and deep red cups.

The range of hardy daffodils is quite amazing and well beyond the
few large cups you see in most garden centers and box stores, but it takes
some searching to get some of these. Although I prefer to walk through the
garden checking flowers and labels and comparing varieties, I do bring cut
mixed bouquets into the house mostly for the variety and fragrance.

I certainly urge beginners to take advantage of the relative
bargain of buying 100 bulbs of 1 variety. The price drops a lot. Buy 100 of
each variety, one or 2 per year and it doesn’t take long to surround
yourself with these very reliable bulbs. I’ve been gripping them here for
almost 30 years. We get deer in the garden almost daily and nightly and
they do not disturb the flowers or foliage, gophers, voles, and moles do
not eat the bulbs and we do not have the narcissus fly because of too
extreme temperatures. We are shocked when driving around the neighborhood
in spring that there are so very few homes with even a single small clump
of some old classic in bloom and no variety or number.

I can’t begin to make an accurate guess as to how many narcissus
I grow, but I suspect there are thousands of individual bulbs that bloom in
succession over many weeks in the spring. Yes I am addict.

Best Jim W.

pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net> wrote:

hybrids. I grow Narcissus from wild-collected seed whenever I can get it.
Some in my collection were sown in the 1990s. I am sometimes at a loss to
know how to name them, owing to the fact that there are competing sets of
nomenclature, with the usual divide between "lumpers" and "splitters," as
well as disagreement on the affinities among different wild populations. I
just keep the identifications under which I got the seed, unless I can
clearly tell that it's wrong by all accounts.

which is very good for growing almost all kinds of Narcissus in the open
garden. Only the fall- and midwinter-flowering ones have to be kept under
cover. It's cold enough in the winter to suit species from higher
elevations, and dry enough in summer to please Mediterranean plants in
general. I've moved some of the larger, more prolific species into the
garden in separate areas. We've just had a terrible hot, dry week or so,
and the flowers have all suffered, but there are still some nice groups of
Narcissus carrying on. Narcissus poeticus is one of the later species.
There are good groups of Narcissus jonquilla and species related to it,
such as N. cordubensis and N. fernandesii, and I confess I can't really
tell them apart except perhaps on the basis of the foliage. In a raised bed
and a bulb lawn, the small species N. rupicola and N. calcicola flourish.
N. triandrus grows in several sites but I think it's best on a cool rock
garden.

roadside. They make a useful display and source of cutflowers, and my
theory is that they will decoy the bulb fly away from the precious species.
I haven't seen any signs of virus in these purchased bulbs, but in a former
garden I once received some bulbs of 'Quail' that were clearly
virus-infected.

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