Readers Respond: How Do You Grow Daffodils?

Tell us about how you grow daffodils. For example:

• Do you divide your daffodils? If so, how often?
• What are the sunlight and soil conditions like where you grow daffodils?
• How have you fertilized them?
• What other plants are growing around your daffodils?

Share your expertise on growing daffodils with us. And if you've made mistakes and would like to relate that information (so the rest of us can avoid making the same mistakes), pass those along, too!

Growing Daffodils

I have daffodils growing in most all of my gardens for early spring color. When they start slacking up on blooms I know it is time to dig and divide. I use Rock Phosphate for all my bulbs. It is organic and lasts longer than bulb food. I find that planting them near daylilies or columbine helps to hide the tops until they die back. These plants will start growing and be big enough to hide the tops of the daffodils. Other than giving them a good dose of Rock Phosphate when I plant them I don't feed them anything until I divide them again. I find the more sun they get the more blooms I get.

—Shelby24019

Growing Daffodils

Some of my daffodils are under deciduous trees, but they get plenty of sun before those trees leaf out. I have a sandy soil, so the daffodils get good drainage (even more so for the ones I grow in a rock garden). I usually forget to fertilize, but when I remember, I hit them with some bulb fertilizer after they're done blooming. I haven't found the need to divide my daffodils yet. As for companions, they grow next to a number of different plants, including candytuft, lily of the valley, yellow alyssum and snowdrops.

—Guest Jim Boswell