Do I need to dig up daffodils every year: timing, care and storage

Often on personal plots you can see such beautiful flowers as daffodils. Their beauty is sung in ancient legends about a beautiful young man who starved to death while admiring his own reflection. Graceful flowers require proper care. But not everyone knows whether it is necessary to dig up daffodils after flowering for the period of winter cold, as well as other important rules for digging and storing bulbs in winter.

Do I need to dig up daffodils

To determine how often to dig bulbs out of the ground, you need to pay attention to the following facts:

Every year, several babies grow on each flower bulb. This enables lovers of daffodils to significantly increase the number of tubers on their land in a short time.
If you do not transplant for 5 years, the bulbs grow close to each other, and this negatively affects the flowering of daffodils. Therefore, it is recommended to periodically divide the roots and transplant the plant.
Flowers easily tolerate the cold season, so there is no need to dig up the bulbs for winter storage. Most flower growers take rhizomes out of the ground every year for routine inspection and propagation.
When caring for daffodils, pay attention to the size of the bud. If the flower has become small, and the plant seems lethargic and weak, this indicates possible diseases of the bulbs. In this case, after the flowering period, the tubers need to be dug up, inspected, the root system disinfected and the infected areas removed.

Experienced flower growers do not advise getting daffodil bulbs out of the ground every year, without good reason. Since with frequent transplantation, the plant may stop flowering for several seasons or produce small buds.

What is detrimental to wintering for daffodils

Almost all species of this beautiful flower tolerate cold well, being in the open ground, and do not need to be stored outside the flower bed. It is recommended to cover with a small layer of mulch and dry leaves only in case of transplanting or changing the place of flowering of the plant.

Taceto varieties need mulching every year. Terry and imported daffodils require the same care. Mulching helps to preserve the tubers also in the absence of rainfall. Therefore, experienced flower growers recommend using this protection method during the winter months, even for hybrid flower varieties that are highly frost-resistant.

When it's time to dig

When it's time to transplant daffodils, to avoid the lack of flowering in the new season, it is necessary to accurately determine the time of digging up the tubers.

Unlike other flowering plants, daffodils do not have a specific time for the dormant stage, that is, a period when all processes inside the flower slow down significantly. Therefore, the owners of this plant do not have to wait for a specific day to start the transplant procedure.

However, it is not recommended to do this immediately after the buds bloom. The best time is considered the moment when the leaves of daffodils turn completely yellow. This usually happens in the second half of June, and continues until early July.

What else you need to know about digging up daffodils after flowering

When the buds of beautiful flowers are no longer pleasing to the eye, the leaves have acquired a dark yellow hue, and it's time to get the tubers out of the ground - the next stage of plant care begins.It is necessary to cut off the withered leaves, then move the dug up bulbs to a cool and well-ventilated place to dry. After that, shake off the dried remains of the earth from the roots.

Need for a procedure every year

It is recommended to dig and store daffodil bulbs after flowering only in cases where the grower plans to transplant or propagate the plant. And also, when there is a suspicion of diseases of the root system.

Digging Precautions

Basic recommendations for safely extracting rhizomes from the ground:

Dig up plant bulbs together with a large clod of earth so as not to harm them.
It is undesirable to use a large garden shovel, as there is a high probability of damaging the roots. It is better to use a tool designed for indoor plants.
Never cut the roots.
After the tubers have dried up a little, you need to beat off the excess land and start dividing the bulbs. This part of the plant is quite sensitive, so this procedure must be approached with all caution.

Attention! In order to remove excess soil, do not resort to the use of water. If out of all the tubers dug up for transplanting, at least one bulb is diseased, it is highly likely that all the others will be infected.

How to properly store daffodil bulbs

To keep dug bulbs until spring without harming them, you should follow a few recommendations.

Daffodils must be laid out in the open air and allowed to dry well. It is required to avoid direct sunlight on the plant, as it can be burned. It is also undesirable to keep bulbs outdoors during the summer rains.

After the flowers are completely dry, they are moved to a cool and ventilated area until planting.

Choosing a storage location

A cellar, a barn and other outbuildings are suitable for this. The only thing you need to pay attention to is the air temperature in the storage, it should not exceed 15-16 degrees Celsius.

It is worth noting that flowers need constant air circulation during storage at home. Therefore, they are placed in open boxes or boxes, laid out in rows. It is strongly not recommended to use plastic bags for storing daffodil bulbs.

Daffodils should be checked approximately once every 7-10 days. If it becomes noticeable that some onions have begun to rot or are infected with any fungi or pests, they are removed so that diseases do not spread to he althy roots.

Attention! It is not recommended to store tubers at home in winter for more than 120 days, otherwise the planting material will begin to actively deteriorate.

Whether processing is needed

Immediately before planting, it is advisable to treat the plants to eliminate the risk of infection with parasites. To do this, all the bulbs are placed in a container with potassium permanganate of low concentration for no more than half an hour. Also for these purposes, you can use special store-bought preparations, such as Fitosporin or Maxim Dachnik. The processing rules for these products are described on the packaging.

When to plant daffodils back into the ground

If there is a desire to see the buds in the next season, then the planting material must be sent to the ground in the fall. However, you need to pay attention to weather conditions and precipitation. It is advisable to have time to plant the bulbs three to four weeks before the onset of the first frost so that they take root in the hole.

Another important point is that the air temperature before landing should not fall below +10 degrees for several weeks. In the middle climatic zone, it is recommended to plant daffodils in the second decade of September. As for those areas of the country where frosts come earlier and the climate is more severe (the Urals and Siberia), planting in open ground must be done at the end of summer.

If it is decided to plant daffodils in the spring, it is necessary to choose the period of time when the soil warms up to 7 degrees Celsius. Often, this is mid-April, early May - it depends on the region. But it should be remembered that there will be no flowering this season, as the plant needs to take root.

Regardless of the period in which daffodils were planted, so that they decorate the flower bed annually and please the eye, it is required to choose a site for the garden wisely. And also properly prepare the soil.

It is advisable to choose a higher place for planting flowers, because due to high humidity, the bulbs will quickly rot. It is also better to choose open to the sun and windless areas of the garden.

The soil is prepared in advance before planting. Depending on the type of soil, different top dressing is suitable:

Heavy soil is diluted with sand and humus, as well as compost.
If the acidity of the soil is high, it is recommended to use wood ash or limestone flour for fertilizer.
Complex fertilizer - superphosphate is suitable for all types of soil.

Drainage is essential for bulb flowers. To do this, a little sand is poured into the bottom of the hole, so that the water does not stagnate in the root system of the plant.