If you are a Seattle gardener looking for a beautiful flower that insects ignore, thrives in a rainy climate, and blooms in the early spring with amazing beauty and scent -- you should plant daffodils.
In Seattle, daffodils are reliable perennials (which means they naturalized and come back year after year.) Plus they bloom waaaay earlier than most flowers in our area and are usually the first flower to bloom in March. (It's our first sign that Seattle's Great Grey is subsiding.)
Tips for planting:
Most of my advice for planting daffodil boils down to "dig a trench and throw 'em in."
But if you like additional guidance, here's my daffodil planting tips:
- Daffodils need a cold period before the bloom. Plant in the fall (late October, November and December all work) to enjoy their blooms in March and April.
- Plant in clumps or rows and space them 2 to 6 inches apart from one another. The bulbs will multiply over time. (I prefer to plant the bulbs about 2 to 4 inches apart because I like the look of daffodils when they are planted closer together.)
- Plant them 3 to 6 inches beneath the surface of the soil.
- Plant in full sun or partial shade.
I usually dig a trench a few inches wide, then zig-zag them (about two to four inches apart) in it.
Tips for success:
- To help the daffodils be successful for the following year, snip the blooms (either to bring them in the house to enjoy) or snip them off once they start to fade at the end of the season. (You want the plant’s energy to go back into the bulb — not into creating seed in the fading flower.)
- Let the foliage die back naturally at the end of the season. Yes, they look unsightly in June, but in order to bloom again the next year, they need to absorb the sunshine and send the energy back into the bulb.
- Once the foliage dies back, you can dig up the bulb and store it until fall, or you can leave it in the ground. (I plant daffodils in the landscape in a place where they can die back on their own and I don’t worry about digging them up.)