Sorry for not coming back to this earlier. Hope the hound returned in good order and looking unrepentant. :-) Yes, pooch returned and was just fine. I had been getting up several times a night looking for her to maybe be laying on the porch (of course I left the light on all night) and magically she just reappeared one night at 3 AM. She looked well fed, was not hungry, and was clean, almost like she had been either someone's house dog, or that she had been tied somewhere. I just cannot imagine where she was as I drove each day looking for her and talked to probably 100 or more households, handing my tel # out, in case she was spotted. I've wondered if maybe she was dognapped and was being held in the hope that a reward would be offered for her. She has always been a pretty good escape artist, so she may have escaped and then somehow found her way home. Serious question: How do you keep your ribbons and rosettes and pictures? Serious answer: At the Indy show, actual ribbons or rosettes are not given except for certain 'classes' that are exhibited... Example:the winning display of 5 different US bred daffs is awarded the ADS(American Daffodil Society) Red-White-Blue Ribbon a winning display of 5 different reverse bicolors-ADS Maroon Ribbon A winning display of 12 cultivars and/or species from not less than 4 divisions-ADS Marie Bozievich (Green) Ribbon The biggie award, I think, is The Quinn Award which is a silver Medal for a collection of 24 different cultivars (!!!) and/or species from at least 5 divisions. There are numerous other ADS awards as well as Indiana Daffodil Society awards and Regional awards. Seasoned growers and showers win the Award classes as it takes numerous different cultivars, or numerous blooms of several different cultivars to put together a collection for the Award (bigger) winning classes. There are various awards for various 'collections' of Standards, Intermediates, Minis, and Historics. Everything I exhibited was either in single stem or a vase of 3 stem classes. Anyway...some of my First Place winners were Tripartite, a real prolific favorite of mine. Fragrant Rose...another favorite as it smells just like a rose. Triple Crown Mint Julep Hawera...Mini single stem AND mini vase of 3 blooms Bright Angel So much of my daff collection was acquired in 2008 and 2009, so it will be a while until all of those grow into 'clumps' giving me more 'choice' blooms to choose from come show time. When purchasing bulbs, I've started to try getting a wide variety of them from the different daff divisions as well as getting them with a nice mix of different bloom times, ie from very early to very late. I've got them listed on a spread sheet with that info, so I can 'sort' them and see just what I'm needing more of. (Maybe a little OCD?) I had intended to 'try' and get a bloom count of everything this year, to see how they are multiplying and to see which ones I might want to dig and divide to either share, or trade, or must divide and plant in 2 separate areas, thus maybe expanding the bloom time of a single cultivar. I never did get any photos of NOT Lemon Beauty to send to B&B. I will use yours if that is okay. Kathy, that would be fine. For anyone who may be curious, Kathy and I are trying to get a name on this daff which I'm thinking was sold as Lemon Beauty, which it clearly isn't. Here is the real Lemon Beauty. Olathe is a beauty! You imagine correctly, I need it bad. Consider it 'yours' if I get it dug, which I really hope/plan to do. Because of your reminder this is the first time I've visited our local Red Butte Gardens while the daffodils were blooming. Oh Sandy, I'm so glad you were encouraged to go and got some great pics to share. They are stunning and I imagine the hyacinths smelled heavenly. Wow! Scenes like this make me want to squeeze a lot more bulbs into my yard. Oh yes, there is always room for a few more. If you purchase any new ones this fall, and happen to have extras to trade, I'd love to work a trade with you for some new (to me) cultivars in smaller quantities. If I get them dug, I should have Olathe (link to pic in a post above) Triparte-pictured above) and Orange Phoenix pictured below and Geranium pictured below as well as others. For that matter, I would welcome trades with anyone who might have extras of newly purchased named daff bulbs, or named bulbs they have dug this year, that I don't have. Just remember to wait 6-8 weeks (8 is best) after bloom time to dig, cure and store until fall planting or trading time. Well, enough about daffs this AM...so much to do. Time allowing I hope to get a few pics of new (to me) blooms before they fade. I've been busy digging out wild onions and garlic from a woods area where I plan to plant new daffs this fall. I don't want other bulb foliage coming up among the daffs. I also need to move a few nice natives out of the area, and then the area can be sprayed in preparation for fall bulb planting. I wanna be done planting before linnea56 this fall. Sue

"What DOES happen if bulbs are planted too deeply?" I guess it all depend on two factors, a)which bulbs you are talking about and b)how deep is the 'deep'. Few cases from my own experience. Once upon a time I planted banch of crocuses and spanish bluebells in a lawn at the edge of the woods. They were planted shallow, not more than 3" deep and bloomed perfectly for several seasons. Last fall part of this area was converted into raised bed and 5 to 7" of top soil/leaf mold/compost was added right on top of the existing grass. No Roundup. This year both bulbs bloomed as usual in lawn, but only bluebells sprouted in the raised bed area. They bloomed at the same time and as profusely as those in a lawn. Apparently 7-10" wasn't TOO deep for them, but was TOO deep for the crocuses. Another example, Tulips 'Pink Impression'. They were planted in 2003 in a 18" high raised bed at exactly 8" depth. I know this for sure since I put 10" of soil first, lay them on a new ground and then covered with 8" of a soil. They bloomed perfectly in 2004, but only few sprouted in 2005. When I decided to remove them after such poor performance, I found a lot of non-blooming bulbs at 12" or even deeper. Bulbs didn't split and were of regular size, but simply were not able to go thru such thick layer of soil plus mulch. I replanted them at the proper depth. Result is below. Third example. Gladiolas. As per planting instructions I originally planted them at 6-8". All bloomed. Next year only about 1/3 sprouted and all were weak and floppy. Next spring I planted new batch, but only at 10-12". More than half came back and they were producing much sturdier stems. Now I'm planting them at 12-14" and on a very rare ocassion require staking. Rate of return now is about 75-80%.

I have been growing King Alfred for over 20 years, all from an original purchase. Last year I dug out two five gallon pails of them to replant a bed with a different type plant. I was able to give a pail to one of my boys but did not get around to doing anything with the other pail. We had a flush of deer come through and ate every plant in the new bed. So I did nothing with the area while pricing the cost of an effective deer fence. The winter rains started and my other daffodils were coming up and I thought I better do something with bucket of daffs that were now sprouting, having spent months in the bucket, now full of water. So I ended up in the mud planting them right back where they were, separating them as I planted them. I had enough left over to plant all the empty clay pots I had, about six, the rest of the bulbs I threw out behind the shed. Every bulb I planted grew and flowered, even some of those on top of the ground behind the shed. The only time I have ever had daffodils that did not flower, was when they were in the shade after nearby trees grew too tall. Al

In general, Dutch bulbs love lime. So I would start with that. After that, it gets murky. I have always had tremendous results with bone meal, which is high in Phosphorus (P). But there are expert growers who say that Potassium (K) is the key nutrient for Dutch bulbs and others. So I just sprinkle a little NPK fertilizer on when the foliage emerges. It may not be optimum, but it works great. Another reason to cut back on the P is that our soils in this area have plenty of P, according to the experts. And once you apply P, it tends to remain in the soil for a long time. I don't agree with him about "a lot of fertilizer". Bulbs use nutrients very efficiently. Nitrogen in particular is bad for bulbs if used in excess. You could end up with excessive splitting, where you end up with lots of little bulbs that will take forever to get to bloom size. So don't use lawn fertilizer, which usually has a gigantic amount of Nitrogen. A 5-10-10 or 10-20-20 is OK if applied lightly. Or use the 12-0-12 which is recommended for this region. If you are growing bulbs in heavy rich soil, the lime may be enough. In sandy soil, they require extra fertilizer. If they are happy, you will end up with big clumps of bulbs that will have to be divided, or they will stop blooming. By the way, tulips really love sandy soil. Daffodils will grow anywhere. You really have to be careful when taking advice from celebrities. They tell you the bare minimum, just enough to fill up the space between commercials. And they don't like to talk about negative or complicated things. For example, if your daffs are looking weak, it may be that they are infested with Narcissus bulb fly. All the fertilizer in the world isn't going to solve that. It's really too bad, because daffs are pretty bulletproof otherwise. However, I have seen virus in daffs, especially in the cheap ones that the big box stores sell. It can show up as yellow stripes on the foliage. Fertilizer won't fix that either. Keep in mind that tulips do not like wet soil in summer. Also, tulips are very attractive to rodents. Daffs don't have these issues. Google it. There is lots of info out there.