Gardening in France: how to overcome daffodil dilemmas

Yes – it’s a relief to see them again every year. All my favourite bulbs, either flowering or preparing to put on a ball gown. 

My daffodils are starting to bloom but, still, I notice one patch of Cyclamineus cultivar ‘Jenny’ that is having an ‘off’ year. I have planted over eighty in one border, and yet have probably only forty flowers each year to show for it. What’s the issue?

Daffodil dilemmas 

There does seem to be a lot of foliage, so I can say that I have daffodils that have gone ‘blind’. Blindness in daffodils has a number of causes. If the bulbs have become too dense with time – in other words, they’re doing splendidly! – they could just be over-crowded and in need of dividing, with a little fertiliser boost in March/April.

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They could also be in conditions that are so dry that the foliage is dying off too rapidly in spring, bearing in mind that the leaves are the powerhouse for next year’s flower buds. Mulching thickly to prolong the life of the leaves could help.

But perhaps it’s Narcissus Bulb Fly? If affected, the bulbs fail completely, or perhaps produce only a few, very spindly leaves. If you cut an affected bulb in half (dig up those with the spindliest leaves!), you should see the brown excrement of a large maggot (usually only one per bulb) that has eaten away the heart, devouring the flower bud in the process.

The adult fly is a sort of hoverfly, looking a little like a small bumble bee, which lays its eggs at the necks of bulbs in early summer when the foliage is dying back. 

Sadly, given my ‘galanthomania’, it also loves snowdrops. That’s a heart-warming clue for me, since my snowdrops are doing nicely, thank you! 

Chemical control of narcissus fly, in the days when such things were the norm, was fairly useless, so cultivation techniques are the only weapon.

Narcissus fly love dry, warm, sunny spots, where they cruise in spring, laying their eggs at the neck of likely bulb hosts. But my ‘Jenny’ are planted in the shadiest position of all my daffodils – and shade is the most recommended Narcissus Fly remedy.

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Meanwhile other daffodils – most notably Jenny’s cousin, ‘Peeping Jenny’ – are thriving and multiplying on the other side of a yew hedge in warm sunshine. I begin to be absolutely certain that my little Jennies are not suffering from the dreaded fly.

However, if it really were the fly causing the problem, I could mound up the soil around the neck of my bulbs to make the area a less attractive egg-laying site. For really valuable bulbs, I could put down a fleece barrier to prevent egg-laying.

No – I think the problem is possibly lack of feeding and a soil that dries too much in summer. So, I’ll mulch the area around the bulbs and apply a fertiliser. I’ll never try the overly tidy gardener’s trick of tying the leaves in a knot or cutting it away prematurely. That’s tantamount to chopping their floral heads off for the 2023 season.

A 'lively' compost trick

While March is the time for kick-starting your dahlias, in April I’m turning my attention to my compost bins and trying a new compost activator from Biotop (new to me, at least). It’s based on the larvae of the Black Soldier Fly (Hermetia illucens).

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Pioneered first in more tropical regions as a biowaste activator for use in industrial plants around large conurbations, apparently the fly excels at turning waste into compost in only two to three weeks.

The promise is that you do not even have to turn the heap. I find this story hard to believe – but am always willing to take a gamble! 

Like biological pest controls, the product (called ‘Larvo’Feed’) is living, and so has to be kept fresh and healthy until used: it will keep about three weeks in a fridge.

But remember that it is generally agreed that if a compost heap or bin is not decomposing rapidly enough, there is a poor carbon-to-nitrogen balance, with insufficient nitrogen available in the plant components you have added to the heap.

If you are not keen to invest in an ‘activator’ like ‘Larvo’Feed’, try adding green foliage such as comfrey or nettles; coffee grounds are also relatively rich in nitrogen. 

Only use the time-honoured ‘application’ of human urine if you don’t have neighbours near enough to be embarrassed!

Read also: What you should do to your garden in France in spring