Being a country girl, I’ve battled my share of bulb gobbling gophers.  But there’s just one kind of bulb they won’t touch – daffodils.  So if you have gophers in residence, here’s a great buy that you can be sure will thrive unmolested and rebloom every spring.

 
 Brecks Chromacolor Pink proves all
narcissus aren’t yellow or white.

Genus Narcissus contains bulbs we know as daffodils, jonquils, narcissus and paper whites.  All share the same trumpet shaped flower with its distinctive collar.  They also share toxins which make them untouchables to hungry gophers.  Old time farmers and gardeners knew this and would plant these bulbs around their garden perimeters to discorage gophers from burrowing into the more dilectable plants. 

  
Brecks extraordinary pink daffodil
collection that offers 5 bulbs of each
of the 5 varieties plus a bonus of five
extra huge 5″ flowered Chromacolor
pinks, all for under $30!

Find pink daffodils at Brecks Bulbs in our Cool Links section. 

 While this barrier method is not particularly effective for protecting beds or gardens, I found another application.  When planting my bare root fruit trees, I’d ring them densely with a colony of narcissus bulbs like a living collar over the root zone.  It seemed to work, and I got a bonus of beautiful fresh cut bouquets every spring.  Ever since I’ve been nuts about narcissus!

This resistance to gophers explains why narcissus are so prevalent at graveyards and abandoned homesites.  They are the only thing that survives.  It makes them excellent bulbs for naturalizing in uncultivated parts of your homesite, along fence lines, verges on wildlands and in tree groves where they punch up through the winter layer of dead leaves.