Daffodils are hardy perennials that come back year after year and can stream throughout the garden.
They are usually planted in October and the flowers bloom in late winter or early spring.
There are thousands of daffodil varieties. The traditional daffodil flower may be a showy yellow or white, with six petals and a trumpet-shaped centre.
However, to ensure they grow back “bigger and stronger” next year, Fiona Jenkins, gardening expert at MyJobQuote has shared her best advice on what to do when daffodils have started to fade.
She said: “You can help daffodils grow by returning energy to the bulbs and continuing to nourish the plants as they fade, either with fortnightly watering with liquid tomato fertiliser or the application of a general granular feed when you do your deadheading.
“This will also help the bulbs to bulk up and mature. Allow the leaves to remain upright and unfurled after the plant has finished blooming, as this is when the plants use photosynthesis to create and store food for the following spring blooms. Allow the foliage to die naturally before you prune it.”
Fiona urged gardeners to leave the foliage alone to die naturally before pruning and deadheading. This usually takes around six weeks for the plant to completely die off.
The expert suggested a nifty trick for making the plant look somewhat appealing as it dies off.
Fiona said: “Plants may look untidy as they wither away, but you can disguise them by planting evergreen perennials and later-flowering bulbs around them.”
She also shared how to give daffodils “critical” care to ensure they “grow well the following year”.
The expert said: “It’s critical to give your daffodils post-flowering care right by deadheading them because it will affect how well they grow the following year.
“There is no need to remove the entire stem at the base. Instead, remove the dead flowers and the top inch or so of the stalk, allowing the rest to photosynthesise and feed the rest of the plant as it dies back.
“Deadheading daffodils prevents the plant from wasting energy by producing seed heads rather than returning them to the bulbs in preparation for next year’s blooms to grow back much bigger and stronger.”
Daffodils should be deadheaded when the flowers fade, lose their colour, and become brown and wrinkly.
She said: “Place a golf tee next to each spring clump that needs to be divided to make it easier to find them once they’ve died. Each clump should be dug up and the bulbs separated.
“Replant the largest bulbs at a distance of at least two bulb-widths apart. Prepare the soil as if you were going to plant new bulbs.”
Daffodils should be planted in a sunny location that receives at least six hours of direct sunlight.
Plants grown in partial shade will still produce green leaves but will not bloom.
They are best planted in autumn, so the soil should have cooled, but it should still be workable when you plant.
