How To Avoid The Problems

Planting bulbs correctly will solve most of your woes.

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One of the most frequent questions we are asked in spring is, “Why did our daffodils produce lots of leaves but no flowers?” There are several reasons behind this dispiriting ‘blindness’, most of them down to planting and husbandry, and luckily it is an easy problem to resolve.

If the bulbs are planted somewhere dry or don’t receive sufficient water, they may die back prematurely, preventing them from replenishing food reserves needed for future flowering.

If you keep watering them after flowering, the bulbs continue to grow and you are more likely to get a good show the following year.

Removing the leaves too early, or knotting them, also stops the bulbs from building up food reserves, while if you leave them to set seed they will divert energy away from future flower formation. Let the leaves die right back before removing them; it looks untidy, but it’s worth it.