Daffodils are in bloom everywhere in the Bay Area right now. They are one of the first flowers to bloom in the spring.  Sometimes they even start blooming earlier in January – February depending on the weather.

Daffodils are some of the easiest flowers to grow!!  Seriously, you literally dig a little hole (big enough to fit the bulb), plop the bulb in with the pointy side up, cover it with soil, water periodically, and wait. That’s it!  Or if you want to plant them in pots, just fill your pot with soil, stick the bulbs in the pot and cover with soil. Water once or twice a week, and that’s it!

If you plant daffodils in the fall they will start blooming in the spring.  If you plant them later, you may not get any flowers that season, because by the time they are ready to bloom it’s too warm.  These are cool climate flowers, they don’t like the heat.

I found that the years that we get a lot of rain and mild temperatures, the daffodils are in bloom for a very long time – almost a month.  But if it’s too warm the daffodils don’t stay in bloom for long, the flowers wilt. That’s why it’s best to plant them in the shade, that way if it does get hot unexpectedly, the flowers will still stay fresh.

Because daffodils grow at their best in woodland settings under the canopy of trees or in open prairies, the recommended way to to plant these bulbs is to just throw the bulbs freely on the area where you want to plant them; where they end up landing is where you plant the bulbs.  This way the daffodils grow just as they would in nature – randomly.

Random style of growing daffodils

There are hundreds of varieties of daffodils! If you look on the web you will find numerous nurseries selling tons of varieties.  What’s interesting about these various types of daffodils is that they all do well!  There is no one variety that performs better than others.  I have planted all types of daffodils and they all bloom and look gorgeous.  From my experience, the only time I have not had them bloom is when it was too warm or when I planted them too late (like January – February), this doesn’t give them enough time to settle in. Best time to plant daffodil bulbs is in the fall, that’s why you will find all spring bulbs being sold in late summer to fall.

Varieties of Daffodils

The best thing about daffodils?  They give you more with each passing year!  These bulbs multiply generously year after year with the daffodils becoming large flower clumps over time.

There is one garden predator that loves daffodils and that is snails! So when I start seeing the buds, I spread some snail bait around the daffodils and that usually does the trick.

Try growing daffodils for yourself; you will get a wonderful flower show every year in the early spring when the rest of the garden is still dormant.

My Aunty Vinatha commented on my daffodil post and I thought she was so eloquent in describing daffodils that I just quoted her.  She describes daffodils like this  “ I love the Golden Daffodils – they cling together like good friends. These words from William Wordsworth’s poem ” Daffodils ” comes to my mind.”

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. 

I looked up this poem by William Wordsworth.  Here it is in its entirety.

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud