6 recommendations for growing perky and vibrant daffodils

Adorn your garden with lovely daffodils in colours like soft white, lemon, salmon pink, or vibrant gold. These spring blooms, which are the official March flowers, can also help keep away common garden pests.

Daffodil is the most popular name for members of the genus Narcissus, a diverse bulb family that includes about 25 species and thousands of varieties that bloom between February and May.

• All have a central trumpet, or corona, but the size, colour and shape of the blossoms varies from plant to plant.
• Many classic daffodils have long, fringed, tube-shaped coronas, but others have flat, ruffled ones. Colours of the petals and coronas range from soft white, lemon and salmon pink to vibrant gold and orange.
• Squirrels and rodents usually leave daffodils alone, and most types bloom for many years with very little care.
• Daffodils and narcissus can also tolerate more shade than other bulbs.

Technically, all daffodils are narcissus, but not all narcissus are daffodils.

• Most of the bright yellow and white daffodils seen in gardens in spring really are daffodils, but smaller-flowered varieties that bloom later, often with several flowers per stem, are properly called narcissus.
• Jonquils are a specific class of narcissus.

• Pinch off faded flowers with your fingernails or pruning shears, leaving the green stem in place.

Removing the blooms speeds storage of food reserves that the bulb needs in order to bloom next year.

• Feed your daffodils and other narcissus with a balanced fertilizer sprinkled around the plants in spring.
• If you have a lot of bulbs, invest in a high-phosphorus bulb fertilizer.

• Daylilies make fine daffodil companions because fading daffodil foliage will be neatly masked by the daylilies' similar leaves.
• Other good green screens include peonies and Shasta daisies.

The best way to plant small-flowered narcissus is in naturalistic drifts, with dozens of bulbs creating meadows or rivers of colour.

• Try them along the base of a fence or another place where their fading foliage won't interfere with your late spring lawn mowing.

Narcissus are slightly toxic and unpalatable, so pests will generally leave them — and their neighbouring plants — alone.

• Use them as decoys.
• Interplant daffodils with tulips, hyacinths and other bulbs beloved by chipmunks, mice and moles. Some types are even bypassed by browsing deer.

If a spring cold snap threatens to injure plants, protect them with an overturned flowerpot, a cardboard box or even an old blanket.

• The new growth of most daffodils will not be injured unless temperatures drop to around -7°C, and early daffodils often push up blooms through wet spring snow.

Divide narcissus every four years in early summer, just as the foliage has died back.

• Lift the clump with a fork, shake off soil and let the bulbs dry in the shade for a few days.
• Pull the bulbs apart and either replant them immediately or store them in a box until you're ready to replant them in the fall.

On top of their exquisite beauty, these spring flowers can also help you hold common garden pests at bay. What's not to love!