She really is the best! 

No one does it quite like her… Almost all flower bulbs have suffered Mother Nature’s moods over the course of this last year, but this flower bulb is tough like no other. Tulips, Hyacinths, Alliums, Crocuses… almost all of them are generally showing very lukewarm harvest results, sometimes even bad ones. But my best bulb is a superstar as always.

The Daffodils are drying on the fields. Sun-dried Daffodils are our favourites!

Some new people might be wondering what I’m on about right now, but if you’ve been reading my blogs for a while now, you knew right away that I am talking about my beloved Daffodils. She is my absolute favourite flower, you can always count on her to do well, come rain or come lots of rain, and she proved that again during this exceptionally, astronomically wet season. It’s never too cold or too muddy for a Daffodil. She’ll grow like nothing’s different, year after year. 

‘Horse teeth’ in our Daffodils. Yes, this is really what we call them. It’s a growth disorder that some varieties tend to experience. 

It is nice for me, because in years like these I get to sell so many of my favourite flowers. Lots of other varieties are experiencing shortages, growers are unable to deliver the numbers they normally are able to get to us. It’s not their fault at all! This is the risk of living products… but that doesn’t take away from the fact that it really sucks. It’s an historically bad year, I can tell you that much. I’ve not seen it like this maybe ever. Even the old men of the flower bulb world are implying that this year’s not something they’ve seen before… but I need to be careful what I’m saying here, because I can already hear my own children and younger colleagues tell me that I AM in fact an old man, too. Tend to tell stories like an old man, anyhow. But luckily I am still surrounded by lots of extremely knowledgeable colleagues who are many years my senior. 

Just to show you: I’ve forgotten over the last weeks to show you the new Daffodil seeds! This harvest was absolutely fantastic, lots of hybrids have worked out and produced seeds. I can’t wait to see what they’re going to look like five years from now. 

Back to this year’s harvest. It’s sad how often we have miscalculated the number of flowers we would be able to get this year. Some growers have gotten us about half the numbers of what they promised us. It’s hard for us too, we have to adjust the numbers on the website because we have so little left in storage, and we also deliver to other flower bulb stores in the US and other countries, who are also short of their bulbs. But it’s by far the worst for the actual growers. For many of them, the numbers they harvested will not be enough to cover the cost of the season. This happens sometimes, it’s not that rare, but it still is not a nice situation to be in. It also happens sometimes that harvests are smaller because of low demands in the previous year, and then they plant less of them and suddenly the variety gets more popular. But during years with smaller harvests there are always lots of small bulbs left over. You can’t sell those because they didn’t grow big enough to do that, but they go back into the ground to be planted, and then in the next year you have all those extras because you had planted so many more small bulbs. The problem solves itself a little bit in that way. 

A show-off Daffodil. It grew amazingly, as you can see. 

But back to the Daffodil! My own personal favourite, I can’t say it often enough. She is shining at us from her place on the field, where she is drying nicely in the warm sun. After Daffodils are harvested, we leave them out for a few days so the sand can dry up. Then you can shake off the dry sand when you pick them up off the fields. When they’re mostly clean, they go onto the tractor and to the warehouse. 

The digging of our miniature Daffodils. It’s different than the large ones: they are caught at the back of the digging machine and put into wooden crates. Then, they dry on the fields as well. 

Our Daffodils are out as well. During the week, we’ll go out to get them into the warehouse, where we’ll process them. The miniatures are in the warehouse already. The first bulbs for our Fluwel Specialty Daffodils are already counted and put away!

Miniature Daffodil Camborne… In the wet areas of the field, we dug up more sand than Daffodils. If you want, you can get some free sand with your order. 

With all this Daffodil positivity now surrounding you you must have gotten enthusiastic about planting some Daffodils for yourself this year. We have something for everyone, Daffodils that come back for many years on end. If that’s what you want for your garden, I’d recommend the following varieties: Brackenhurst,

a good Daffodil that shines with the amount of flowers she makes. Some twenty years ago, we planted a collection of over 1500 different Daffodils that we then didn’t touch for seven years. Brackenhurst was the eye-catcher of that experiment, after all those years she still absolutely steals the show with her bright colours. 

Actaea,

time flies! I’ve lived at the same place for 33 years now, and I planted these Actaea in the first year here. Every year they look great.

Carlton,

I’ve shown you this picture before, in a newsletter about a year or so ago, but they’re still standing! They even changed the mowing schedule in the area to protect flowers that naturally grow in the area, so they have the chance to multiply and grow in number. If you give Daffodils an opportunity like that, they’ll grab it with both hands, and we have many more of them now. They used to be cut when they were at their best, but now that the policies changed, we can enjoy them much longer. 

There are many Daffodils who show us time and time again that they are the perfect flowers for little ditches, hills, and lakesides. They can cheer up any forgotten part of your property or corners of the garden that you rather not think about. Plant these easy Daffodils in those spots, and you’ll see just how much the entire atmosphere brightens! 

Breath of Spring,

I can’t be sure, this Daffodil isn’t that old, and we haven’t planted large numbers of her yet, but a little bulb that was left behind in my garden a few years ago has now changed into this beautiful group of flowers, so I have high hopes for her, too. If you want to try out a little surprise, this is the one to go to! 

The varieties mentioned above all come back exceptionally well, but I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t feel like I was forgetting about so many more of my favourite flower bulbs… almost all of them tend to do so well in literally any garden. Just give her some good soil, not too dense, where she gets sunlight for at least half a day. With those conditions, almost all Daffodils can come back for many years. Some like it a little dryer, a little more sun, or a little more warmth, but if they have any preferences like that I’ll always mention it in their accompanying text. If there’s no extra information on her preferences, you can assume that she’s an easy bulb and doesn’t need any special attention. Time to wrap it up again! 

Kind regards, 

Carlos van der Veek