If you want daffodils to come back year after year, daffodil care is key once they have finished flowering.
Daffodils are a reliable sign of spring and bring beautiful colour to gardens. What’s more, daffodil bulbs naturally deter squirrels and other rodents, making them an excellent option if you’ve previously had trouble with troublesome small animals treating your garden bulbs as a meal.
These bright flowers are incredibly straightforward to cultivate, naturalise effectively and return in increasing numbers each year, provided they receive proper care.
On his gardening TikTok account, @joesgarden, Joe revealed a “quick tip to keep daffodils flowering year after year”. All that’s required is some clean, sharp secateurs and 10 seconds of your time.
One challenge gardeners might encounter when growing daffodils that flowered the previous year is that they can emerge “blind” – producing foliage but no blooms.
Prevent this by deadheading the faded flowers and allowing the foliage to die back naturally without tying it into a knot. This will usually need doing from mid to late April.
Joe explained the process. He said, “Once the heads die back, locate the seed pod, grab your snippers and just cut.
“Leave the foliage to die back to return the energy straight back into the bulb.”
Ensure you avoid tying up daffodil leaves or trimming them back while they’re still green, as this could diminish flowering next year.
Keep your plants watered and fed if they’ve been in the pot or the ground for some time, as they will be lacking nutrients.
Additionally, if the bulbs have been in the ground for several years, they may have become overcrowded. Should this be the case, dig them up and replant the larger, healthier bulbs, as smaller ones could take several years to reach flowering size.
Since daffodils finish flowering by mid-spring, they ought to be planted together with plants that flourish during summer, such as dahlias, geraniums and peonies.
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