Old names on new bulbs (Split from February images)

[David Pilling]

Throw away is not how I started either - the ground in question is poisoned - too many previous Dutch bulbs - so new ones don't survive. It's just a different style of gardening produce flowers and interest all year long - does mean I can't wait seven years for daffodils to flower from seed. Put bulbs in, rip them out when they start to look untidy.

It is interesting how bulbs will survive or not. I've seen tulips grow for a decade or more flowering every year and yet mostly they don't do that - they split into lots of little bulbs that never flower again or just perish.

There are clumps of daffodils that have flowered for 50 years - but if I plant new clumps, some will survive some won't.

Same with plants in general - some spots suit and most do not.

As to growing from seed, I once grew some daffodils from seed, took many years and I did not like the resulting flowers.

[Martin Bohnet]

There are clumps of daffodils that have flowered for 50 years - but if I plant new clumps, some will survive some won't.

That may just mean the older forms are more robust, you never know what the true breeding targets are these days... I've read about big companies "optimizing" pansies - as in all colors will take exactly the same number of days from seed to flower.

[David Pilling]

As it happens the 50 year old daffs are/were "King Alfred" - now it says on the wiki, information added by that highly reputable source David Pilling that what happens is that clones become diseased and have to be abandoned, but the names are popular, people still go into shops and ask for "a 56 pound sack of King Alfred", so they give them something different but with the old name.

A lot of the daffs available are supposedly old bulbs - invented in Victorian days.