How To Naturalize Daffodils & Best Bulbs That Multiply and Spread

Do you have little space or time for gardening, but crave early spring color to brighten your yard? Are you the kind of gardener who leans more towards natural and relaxed than formal and manicured? If you’ve answered yes to these questions, Daffodils are for you!

Naturalizing is a technique used by gardeners and landscapers to establish plants outside of typical garden beds, encouraging them to multiply and spread. Daffodils are lovely in beds and borders, but when allowed to naturalize, multiply, spread, they can flourish beyond traditional garden boundaries. Daffodils are especially rewarding -- they offer some of the earliest spring flowers, with bold, cheerful blooms. Plus, there’s little to no work involved for the gardener after planting, and they can thrive and multiply for decades.

This guide will tell you how to choose the best site for Daffodils, which Daffodil bulbs are best for naturalizing and spreading, and give you expert tips for planning and planting your bulbs. Plus, learn more about the benefits of planting Daffodils with trees and vegetable gardens. Let's dig in!

Where To Naturalize Daffodils

When choosing a site to naturalize Daffodils, you want:  

• A site with decent drainage where standing water does not occur. Daffodils can grow in just about any soil as long as it is well-drained and not too compacted.
• A site where you can delay mowing until summer, or where you can mow around the swaths of Daffodils and foliage. (It's best to leave foliage until it turns brown for the best chance of bulbs multiplying!)
• A site with 6+ hours of sunlight in spring. Remember - a wooded area that is shady in summer may offer plenty of spring sunlight before trees leaf out.
• Lawns are a great place to naturalize Daffodils! Early-blooming, low-growing Tete-a-Tete Daffodils are ideal for lawns
• Gently sloping fields, meadows, or forest edges are ideal for naturalizing bulbs like daffodils.
• Early-blooming cultivars of daffodils can be planted at the edge of the woods, where they will receive enough sun before most trees leaf out. 

Best Daffodils For Naturalizing

Many of the older tried-and-tested cultivars of Daffodils can bloom for at least 30 years, and even up to 50 years when left to their own devices. When mixing with surrounding plants, the smaller varieties may be better. These bulbs from American Meadows are the best-known for their naturalizing superpowers:

• Narcissus ‘Actaea’ – Small-cupped daffodil (late spring)  
• Narcissus ‘Ice Follies’ – Large-cupped daffodil (midspring) 
• Narcissus ‘Mount Hood’ – Trumpet daffodil (midspring) 
• Narcissus ‘Tete a Tete’ – Botanical daffodil (early spring)

These especially popular varieties are known to naturalize well because they form drifts and can make seeds and baby bulbs.

Plant a mix of bulbs to extend your bloom time and add dynamic visual interest to your planting! Below are recommendations for early-, mid-, and late-spring Daffodils. Remember, when shopping for bulbs, you can use our "Bloom Time" filter to sort bulbs by bloom time.

• Earlier blooming species include Cassata Daffodil, Dutch Master Trumpet Daffodil, Tete-a-Tete Miniature Daffodil, and more.
• Mid-season bloomers include Art Design Double Daffodil, Thalia Daffodil, Tahiti Double Daffodil, and others.
• Later varieties include The Poet's Daffodil Actaea, Sorbet Daffodil, Petit Four Double Daffodil, and more.

10 Tips For Planning & Planting Naturalized Plantings Of Daffodils

1. As with any fall-bulb planting, plant Daffodils in the fall about 2-4 weeks before the ground freezes.
2. Mow before planting in a grassy area. Lower the mower for the last cut of the fall to give the Daffodils maximum access to sun and warmth when they emerge in early spring.
3. Plant bulbs in irregular clumps and drifts of similar colors. Remember, nature works in curves rather than rows! A simple technique for laying out your bulbs is to put them in a bowl or basket and give them a good toss! The bulbs will scatter naturally - and you can adjust them to give them a more even spacing if needed. 
4. To give your Daffodil bulbs space to multiply, plant them no closer than 6" away from each other. 
5. Planting naturalized daffodils in clusters and swaths creates a more natural look, and makes it possible to mow around the groupings of flowers in the late spring if needed.
6. For the best chance of bulbs spreading, it's best to leave the foliage until it turns brown, so that the bulbs can "recharge" for the next season.
7. Each planting hole should be at least 8 inches deep (approximately three times the height of the bulb.) When planting Daffodil bulbs in an area to be left undisturbed for several years, be sure to plant each bulb as deeply as the packaging details to make sure it's secured and has adequate winter protection. 
8. For a natural look, start with a large quantity of bulbs. When mass planting, using a tool like an auguer (an attachment for an electric drill) can save a lot of time and effort! 
9. Remove the soil in each hole, and add some compost or bulb amendments before planting the bulb. Place bulb so that the pointy end is up, and cover the bulb with sand or soil before closing the hole or replacing the sod. 
10. If planting in a grassy area, yes, you can replace the sod right on top of where you planted the bulb! 

A tree guild is a small community of plants that encircles a tree to provide a relatively self-sufficient support system. Most deciduous trees, including fruit and nut trees, will benefit more from being surrounded by living plants than a stark circle of mulch that must be replaced each spring. 

A tree guild works best with a variety of plants that will flower at different times during the growing season. Each plant in a tree guild has a role, such as fertilizing, attracting beneficial insects, providing a mulch source, or repelling pests.

For example, an apple tree guild might include these plants in harmony:

• a mixture of spring-blooming bulbs and perennials to attract spring pollinators that aid the tree with fruit set,
• chives to repel pests,
• bee balm or yarrow to attract summer pollinators and beneficial insects to mitigate pests,
• borage to accumulate nutrients and tap into trace minerals, making them available for the guild,
• rhubarb for on-site mulch and an added food harvest,
• including perennial native plants like Echinacea with deep root systems will help provide balance in the guild.

It's a great idea to plant Daffodils around trees, and there are several ways Daffodils contribute to tree guilds to keep trees healthier year-round. 

• Planting daffodils around the trunk of the tree will discourage pests that chew bark and dig, such as gophers and squirrels.
• Planting outside the drip line (the area beneath the tree’s outermost leaves at full size) will help to repel deer and other browsers.
• Daffodils and many other spring-blooming bulbs also help suppress turf grasses and their shallow roots from moving into the guild. This helps trees, as the shallow roots of turf grasses compete for the same surface nutrients that are important for the tree.

A note about evergreens: While daffodils can offer a nice contrast to evergreen tree trunks, they should be planted some distance away from the base; daffodils cannot tolerate the poor drainage created by spring shade and the constant dripping of evergreen foliage when the weather is wet.

Naturalizing Daffodils With Vegetable Gardens

Flowers add beauty and interest to a vegetable garden, and they can be beneficial to your harvest. Daffodils are toxic if eaten by critters, and the plants and bulbs have natural defenses like bitter sap that make them unappetizing to animals like squirrels, chipmunks, and voles. Planting Daffodils along the borders of vegetable beds will help deter animals that might snack on your plants. The above-ground flowers and foliage of daffodils discourage deer and other browsers, and the below-ground bulbs discourage gophers, rabbits, groundhogs, and other diggers.

Vegetable garden tip: Daffodils are not edible, so we recommend planting any onions and their relatives away from Daffodils, so that there is no chance for mistaken identity. Plus, onions and Alliums are also unappetizing to critters, so they can serve as a line of defense in the garden as well.