How Do Daffodils Spread?

If you have ever grown daffodils then you will notice that the clumps of flowers seemingly grow and spread over the years. Ore you may have seen them in the wild, colonizing entire banking and covering them in a blanket of yellow. So what is going on here? How exactly do daffodils spread?

How Do Daffodils Spread?

The main way that daffodils spread is through asexual bulb division. Essentially new bulbs will develop off the mother plant, these bulbs are effectively entirely new clones of the parent plant but they are usually still attached to the parent plant.

This is how daffodils slowly spread out and form larger and larger clumps. Gardeners can take advantage of this and break the new bulbs off from the parent plant to create entirely new daffodil plants.

In fact, this is actually a bit of essential care if you want to get the best possible display out of your daffodils.

As the plants form ever larger clumps they actually reach a point where there is simply too much daffodil for the space. At this point, the flowering display of the plant will begin to deteriorate.

So it is advisable to dig up large clumps of daffodils and split them into smaller clumps, more flowers for you, and also a healthier and happier plant, win-win!

So not via seed?

Not many gardeners will grow daffodils from seed, and the reason for this is pretty simple, it can take a good few years from sowing until the young plant will flower.

Seed heads are produced in abundance on daffodils but they are often actually barren.

Pollination of seeds is often very poor in the wild and it is rare for them to ever pollinate. Most pollination has to be done by hand by gardeners. This is because the pollen is heavy and doesn’t fly easily on the wind and the flowers themselves don’t really attract pollinators.

Growing daffodils from seed is really only done by dedicated growers looking to cross different flower styles to make new daffodils. It can take 5-7 years from sowing a daffodil seed to it flowering for the first time!

Conclusion

Daffodils are spread by bulb division, a process where a new bulb that is a clone of the parent bulb forms next to, and is attached to, the parent bulb.

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