by Gail Seymour

Created on: July 07, 2010

Sunny Girl is a butterfly daffodil similar to a Palmares, with a pink split cup that opens out almost as wide as the creamy white perianth, giving them the look of an iris rather than the typical narcissus shape. Where the Palmares is a dusky pale salmon fading to white with a golden center, the Sunny Girl has a terracotta edging fading to apricot.

If you want them to keep their color and not show an orange or even lemon, they are best grown in partial shade even in the colder zone 3 climates, and in more shaded areas in warmer zones up to 8.

They start blooming in March and can go through to May, with each flower lasting a good ten days on 15 to 18 inch average sized stems with mid grey-green foliage.

Planting

Although they like a sandy, chalky or loamy moist but well-drained soil, like most daffodils, they will cope with most soils provided it is not boggy or waterlogged. They will need partial sun for at least six hours a day to flower healthily, but will lose their color if planted where the midday and early afternoon sun shines directly on them, so will naturalize well under deciduous bushes or trees, though you should avoid planting them under evergreens or where they will have to fight with voracious roots for nutrients.

Make sure the bulbs are firm and fleshy. If they are dry and peeling like onions, or have air pockets and feel squashy between your fingers, discard them. Also reject any with signs of rot, mold or mildew, or with white spots.

The bulbs should be planted at three times their depth, so for Sunny Girl that should be around six inches, and they will need a similar amount of space between them, as they are naturally clump forming. If you plant the bulbs in a heavy or clay soil, dig in a little organic matter and surround each bulb with a layer of compost. You may also want to plant them at around four inches and make up the difference with mulch to give them more ideal growing conditions.

During Flowering

Like most other daffodils, Sunny Girl will flower happily for you with little more than an occasional watering during a dry spring. If you cut them for the vase, remember they will produce a milky white sap that is poisonous to most other spring flowers, so either display them on their own or use a daffodil neutralizing feed in the water. The sap, and indeed all parts of the daffodil are mildly toxic, so always wash your hands after handling them.

After flowering

Don’t cut or tie the leaves after flowering. Instead, deadhead the flowers, as they are either sterile or produce seeds that don’t grow true to form, and will only continue to draw energy from the bulb unnecessarily. Allow the leaves to die back naturally, and apply a liquid or granular fertilizer formulated for bulbs during the six weeks or so after flowering, as this is when the bulb is actively storing energy for the following year. They will also need watering if the weather is dry.

Throughout the hotter summer months the bulbs are dormant and need less water, but their root system becomes active again in the fall, when you should ensure the ground doesn’t dry out around them, even throughout winter.

Daffodils don’t like to be continually dug up and are happier if left in one spot to mature, but they will need lifting and dividing as the clumps they form get too big and they begin to compete for food, generally every three years or so. You should also give them at least this long to establish their color, as it tends to deepen as the bulbs mature.

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