Hello bulb-loving people,

This past year, I ordered a few heirloom Narcissi (N. 'Golden Spur') that showed up looking healthy—no complaints, apart from them being on the pricey side, but I was okay with spending a little extra for the blooms I had anticipated. However, this Spring when they emerged, only a handful of the blooms looked to be true to name. I'm trying to ascertain if I was sent an order containing some incorrectly IDed plants, or if this could be due to cultural problems on my end. The suspect blooms weren't so far off that I was sure they couln't be the real deal only stunted somehow, especially since they could be lined up in a sort of gradient if I'd dug them up and arranged them that way:

Some of the plants didn't seem to thrive and sent up only a smattering of foliage and diminuitive blooms...

(Plant to the bottom left)

A few were larger but the petals in the corona didn't behave like they should...

(Bloom from the larger of the above plants—it is smaller and held more erect, plus the corona petals are not curled back on themselves or generally as inflexed)


(Correct for comparison—size difference is hard to tell from photos since the plants weren't next to each other, sorry!)

But some at least appeared to be the correct cultivar.


The seller has pretty favorable reviews, and I think I read somewhere that this is one of the varieties that does better in the North, so I don't want to ask for a refund or replacement if it's not the seller's fault. (My soil is probably more clay than they'd like, but I did amend it. Plus, we've had a crazy warm and wet winter). I suppose what I'm asking is if it is possible for culture/weather to have created such variation in flower size/shape, or even if younger offsets might produce smaller blooms, or if this is probable cause for contacting the seller with a complaint?

Regardless, I'll be interested to see how they look next year... Just trying to decide how to proceed in the meantime.

Thank you!
~Will

[3/17/19: Edited lightly for clarity on photo captions and concluding remarks.]

For me it look very nice
I will be not complaining, in my local climate, Narcissus blooming at all is a rare event . Only few species can survive our local summer, and winter is unpredictable, you can get all December temperatures about 85 F (like was in 2017-2018), Narcissus will come out very late, product few leaves, no bloom, and get dormant 2 month later.

I suppose I am lucky that so many Narcissus cultivars will perform well in my climate... This just may not be one of them! (Or of course, it may get its act together after a first-year hiccup, which is certainly my hope, assuming it is stunted and not a case of being sent incorrect plants. ) I love daffodils, and have just started trying to expand my collection beyond pass-along plants and big box store offerings.

Of course, I'm over here drooling over the aril-type iris in your avatar, @sangel. I haven't even bothered to try growing anything more than a quarter-aril in my climate, and the jury's still out on the garden performance of the few that I have. Guess we all want what we can't have!

~Will

@just_as_will@ in my avatar grows in a wild, in a nature resurvey.It just finished blooming last week, but I was able to take a lot of beautiful pictures this year. In general, we have climate that very close to Florida, but much more humidity in summer without a drop of rain, and much colder in winter.

Today I was looking closer at these daffodils and noticed some yellow streaking I hadn't paid attention to before... If you look in my initial set of pictures, I think you can spot it there, too...




I'm afraid it's Narcissus yellow stripe virus or something similar... Guessing I should just dig and toss the infected-looking plants, and while I'm at it, the ones that failed to perform, too?

Should I be worried about transmitting it to other plants on tools? I'm a bit paranoid now.

~Will

[Edited to add pictures.]