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Summer's Worst Job--Digging Daffodil Bulbs

© Mary Lou Gripshover

In most places in the Northern Hemisphere, it's probably been six weeks or more since your daffodils finished blooming, and so it's safe to either pull off the dried foliage, or dig bulbs. This can be an unpleasant chore in hot, humid weather, but it is also fun to see what kind of increase you've gotten from that "special" bulb you splurged on several years ago. Of course, you don't have to dig daffodils every year. You only have to dig them when they become crowded and fail to bloom, or if you want to change their location.

I like to dig the bulbs when the foliage is still yellow, so that I can see the location of the bulbs. If you wait until the foliage has dried, it's much harder to find the bulbs. If you're digging a lot of bulbs, be sure to keep the different cultivars separated, either for storage, or for replanting.

And that brings up the question: when should you replant bulbs you've dug? I think daffodils are much hardier than most people give them credit for, and so I think you can plant them any time you choose. I've even dug them "green" and moved them to other locations in my garden. It didn't seem to hurt them. One year, when I was moving my garden, I had to dig all my bulbs by May 15. Many still had blooms and green foliage. The bulbs were stored under the deck of the house and stayed there until fall. That gave me the summer months to prepare a garden, as the new location had no garden. It was surprising how many bloomed the following spring. So there is no "right" time to replant the bulbs. Well, all right, do plant them before the ground freezes so they have time to make adequate root growth.

I have a friend in the panhandle area of Florida who says, "Daffodil bulbs belong in the ground, not on the garage floor." If I lived in Florida, I'd follow his advice. He successfully grows hundreds of daffodils.

If you like, you can replant the bulbs immediately. After you've dug all the bulbs of the cultivar, select the largest bulbs to plant back. First, replenish the soil with some compost or fertilizer. Mix this in well with the soil in the bottom of the hole. Then put the largest bulbs back. Either give the small offshoots away, or plant them in an out of the way place until they're big enough to bloom. Don't break off the side shoots unless you can see daylight between the two bulbs attached to the same basal plate.

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