Find The Best Daffodils for Your Region

Choosing daffodils for your garden

When it comes to spring bulbs, nothing packs as much “flower power” as daffodils. Why? Well, because there’s a wide array of species and cultivars with a huge range of hardiness zones. Because of that, unlike other spring bulbs, there’s a daffodil for almost every part of the country — including your garden.

Daffodil reccomendations for your region

We’ve divided the United States and southern Canada into four areas with specific growing tips for each. Daffodils offer you easy-to-grow, long-lived color that you can enjoy every spring. And with so many to choose from, you’ll never run out of new ones to try! Scroll through to learn about the best daffodils for your region.

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Best daffodils for the Northeast

Depending on your USDA zone, daffodils from almost every division (there are 12 official categories based on plant characteristics) grow here. About the only ones that don’t do well are the less-hardy tazettas and bulbocodiums. (And even these will grow along the coast where winters are milder.)

Growing tips

• In zones 3 to 6, if your autumn is dry, water the bulbs after planting to get the roots growing.
• For extra protection, put down a layer of chopped leaves or evergreen boughs once the soil freezes. Then pull the mulch away from the plants in early spring.
• Trumpet, large-cup, small-cup, cyclamineus, poeticus, split-corona and miniature daffodils perform well in the Northeast.

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Best daffodils for the Southeast

Since winters don’t get as cold here, plant bulbs about twice the bulb’s height, instead of the normal three times. Heavy summer rain and humidity can rot bulbs, so it’s best to plant them in raised or bermed beds with sharp drainage. Or you may need to lift and store them in a dry area over summer and replant them in the fall.

Growing tips

• To protect the planted bulbs from intense summer heat, place them where they’ll get part shade as the weather warms.
• In zones 8 and warmer, where spring is very brief, plant prechilled early and late-blooming cultivars as soon as you get them in fall. Water them in well, and give them a few good drinks through the winter if it’s dry.
• Jonquilla, tazetta, species and some large-cup cultivars work well in the Southeast.

Best daffodils for the Southwest

You might be surprised to find that you can grow daffodils even in the hot, dry weather of the southernmost parts of this region. Triandrus, cyclamineus, jonquilla and tazetta are good choices for the Southwest.

Growing tip

• Jonquilla and tazetta cultivars actually prefer the summer heat, but you’ll probably need to water them through fall and again in spring.

Best daffodils for the Northwest

Almost every type of daffodil will grow in the area west of the Rockies. Plant bulbs in the fall before the rainy season starts, but don’t water them or they’ll be more likely to rot before the weather cools down. If you regularly get more than 5 inches of rain per month in summer, lift the bulbs (except for tazettas, which tolerate some summer moisture) like gardeners in the Southeast should. Most daffodil types thrive in the Northwest.

Bloom time varies by area and elevation. For example, early cultivars may open in February in the Southeast and in April in the Northeast.