I do know the place my first hundred vanished to – down the gullets of nematodes, although as I do not know something in regards to the physiology of nematodes, just some methods to manage them, I don’t know if nematodes have gullets or not. However after 200 daffodils vanished for the third 12 months in a row, I took a soil pattern to CSIRO – this was within the years when CSIRO had an honest finances and was world-beating not simply in analysis however supplying info to the general public. The consequence: nematodes. Our wealthy, sloping, chocolate-coloured soil above the home, enriched by a long time of falling blackberry leaves, wasn’t as nicely drained as I assumed. A couple of daffs did survive up there, and we do have some respectable clumps every spring, however the one ones to have multiplied are the Earlicheer jonquils on the sting of a steep slope down in direction of the creek.
