Why you should combine daffodils with petunias

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I've had daffodils here in the Tropical Paradise for years and years. In this mild climate, all you gotta do is plant them once, and they come back year after year. It's always a pleasant surprise to see them starting to stick up, as in the photo above. And this year I will combining them with petunias. The reason for this has to do with what will happen in the spring, after the daffodils are finished blooming.

OK, we all know this - you shouldn't cut down the leaves of your daffodils after they've turned brown. Everyone knows that in order to have plenty of blooms for the next year, you gotta leave them alone. Looking all brown and ugly. I know that. But it doesn't mean that I've always left them alone. I've gone out there and cut all that brown ugliness down, and I'm sure it cost me in blooms the next season. This is the plan for this year - pairing with petunias.

The idea here, if you follow me, is to have the petunias grow around the daffodils. Petunias grow like mad here in the desert during the winter, and like all annuals they fade away when the temperature warms up here. And that means that I will have a nice "ground cover" of petunias by the time the daffodils are full-grown, and done blooming. And here's the trick that I want to try: instead of cutting the ugly brown daffodil leaves down, you tie them up, and tuck them in. You know, under the petunias. I guess you use rubber bands, or twist ties.

I'm experimenting mostly here, but I think that this is gonna work. Either way, it should be beautiful all winter. I'll let you know how it goes.

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