First Daffodil bloom from fridge project 2010, and first blooms from last years fridge project Daffodils.

First flower from former 2009 Daffodil fridge project, re blooms for 2010. April 10th

The first Daffodil in my Main Garden opened today from both former 2009 fridge projects that came back, and from 2010 Daffodil fridge project bulbs I grew in the fridge over this past winter. This garden is a bit more special for me to observe, because this is the garden that I’ve been observing Daffodils. and other spring flowers in for the past 3 years, where as the others on the south side of my house I’ve been showing photos of for the past few weeks, have only been there for one year.

Comparison from last years first blooms, to this years.

First Daffodils blooms in my Main garden are earlier this year then last year. The yellow variety in the photo above began blooming on April 25Th last year, and this year the first bloom opened today April 10th, this puts us at about 2 weeks earlier then last year, which generally suggests that the early snow melt this year has allowed the growing season to start 2 weeks earlier then last year. I will to continue to monitor and post about the Daffodils and Tulips as we go through the next few weeks.

I got quite a nice surprise this year. I had both Tulip, and Daffodil fridge projects from last spring in 2009, come back this spring. Not only did they survive the winter in the ground, The Daffodils are starting to bloom, and I seen promising signs of blooms on the Tulips from last year.

Unopened Tulips buds April 10th.

The surprise was, when this spring came despite what I had heard about fridges weakening the plants or always having fall planted bulbs turn to mush by spring, and no madder how expensive or how many years I put into trying growing them in the ground over winter. The Spring bulbs that were grown in the fridge over winter in 2009, planted in spring and left in the ground over winter the 2010 Winter actually survived. I was shocked to see the Daffodils from last year actually beginning to grow, and when I saw flower buds appearing, I decided to leave these Daffodils as my permanent ones in the garden. Even the Tulip bulbs from last spring look promising for blooms, which is even more shocking because normally once tulips are forced in a fridge It is rare to have them bloom again. Because these Daffodils are turning out to be so successful in the ground I may decide to end Fridge Projects for Daffodils something I thought I would never say!

1 Comment

D, this is great. Would you say the early spring was El Nino related? If so, I’ll be very interested if the next couple non El Nino years brings later blooms like you are used to and the next El Nino creates an early bloom like this year. Awesome update!

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