by Gail Seymour

Created on: July 07, 2010

With its egg yolk colored ruffled trumpet that matures to a deep rich mango, the Tropical Sunset daffodil will remind you of warm summer evenings when it blooms in mid spring. The creamy white petals of the perianth are also tinged yellow at the base, as if being warmed by the heat of the corona.

It’s not a particularly tall daffodil, reaching an average of just 14 to 16 inches tall with deep gray-green foliage, but it is hardy to zone 3 and will tolerate most conditions from full sun to mostly shady, in a wide range of soils.

Planting

Choose healthy, firm bulbs and ideally plant them in late summer through to fall. Any time from late August through to October is fine in the northern hemisphere. If you plant bulbs later than this, the flowers the following year may be weak, so they would probably be best grown indoors that year and planted out the following year.

Choose a site where the daffodils will receive six or more hours of sun in the spring. Partial shade is fine, although they do prefer full sun. If you are planting them in a damp or heavy clay soil, dig in a little compost to improve the soil, and surround each bulb with compost.

Plant the bulbs at three times their depth, so for Tropical Sunset this will be around six to eight inches deep, and bulbs should be planted around the same distance apart.

During flowering

If you experience wet springs, your daffodils should need little care during flowering. If the weather is dry, you may need to water them, but other than that, just sit back and enjoy the flowers. If you want to cut the flowers for the vase, remember daffodils produce a poisonous milky sap that will kill most other spring flowers, so either display them on their own or use a daffodil neutralizing feed.

After Flowering

Deadhead the flowers, as they are either sterile or produce seeds that do not grow true, and once they have spent you want to encourage as much energy as possible back into the bulb for next year. Leave the leaves to die back for this purpose, and give a liquid fertilizer feed every week to ten days during this period until the leaves have completely withered. If you are growing them in a lawn, cut round them until then, as this process is vital for the production of strong flowers for the following year.

Ensure the ground stays moist and is not allowed to completely dry out even in the summer heat or a dry winter, and remember that all parts of the plant are poisonous, so always wash your hands after handling them.

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