When to Plant Daffodils

Daffodils are among the easiest bulbs: planted once in fall, most come back and slowly spread for years. They open early, often while frosts are still about, and the flowers shrug off a cold night. Give them sun at least until their leaves fade in early summer, and plant them where the fading foliage can be left alone.

Daffodils want the same cool-soil planting as other spring bulbs. UW–Madison Extension advises planting once the soil is about 50 to 55 °F or cooler and finishing a couple of weeks before the ground freezes. Our window runs from your median first frost to three weeks after it, and the first hard freeze (28 °F) usually falls inside it, a median 11 days after the first frost. Daffodils are the most forgiving of the three bulbs in mild winters: Clemson Extension finds jonquil, tazetta and species daffodils reliable throughout South Carolina, whose coast reaches zone 9a. Warmer than that, UF/IFAS points to paperwhites, which need no chilling.