I have a book on bulbs here and it says that the most prolific of daffodils needs to be divided every five to six years. Some daffs are slower to increase, in which case you can also just divide them every decade or so. I grow Mount Hood, this is the second year they will bloom and already the flowers on each bulb have tripled and there are bulbils in sight as well. I might have to divide mine every four years... I guess it is best that you keep a journal for your daffs and monitor closely how much they increase each year. If you have trouble seeing how more new growth could come up in the limited space between this year's growth, that would be a sign that it is time to divide. I can't find the bit about when to divide these, but I gather all bulbs are best divided during dormancy, which would mean any time between the moment the leaves fall off and the moment the ground freezes, although I think earlier is better. I think that fall is a bad idea because by then, the plant may have grown more roots that reach deeper, and it will be that much harder to lift them, plus the new root growth would be wasted and it wouldn't have enough time to regenerate properly by next spring. But this is just my admittedly not perfect logic speaking. I would try to do it as soon as the leaves fall off. That way, you do it before new growth starts but after the plant is done producing for the current year. It would then be about to start using its gathered reserves to grow new roots, so your newly transplanted daff would be nicely nestled into place by the time spring comes.

I had the same problem. I planted 100 Dutch master, huge healthy bulbs. The following year, only about 25 came back?? I posted here and someone said I should dig up and see what the bulbs looked like. A bug was eating them and that's why they were not blooming. There was a name for it, like narcissus fly or something like that. Maybe one of the experts will chime in and give you more precise info. It's really disappointing isn't it, I got blisters from planting all those daff's and most of them are gone. I won't plant in that bed anymore.

The first thing I thought was overcrowding... bulbs planted too close together. I know this sounds dumb, but I had a few clumps that I "overplanted" that failed to "thrive" until I lifted them and replanted them, a few years ago. They were even outperformed by a second year planting of FORCED bulbs that I'd interred with some fertilizer and little hope of success. I'd dug a big hole, broken up the clump when I removed them from the pot and put them in. I got only foliage the following year, but they outperformed the other clump for 2 years before I settled on a plan. Good thought on watering... hadn't considered it at all, but bulbs DO want to be well drained and have a "dry" period when they're dormant. I'll remember that one!

Hi Posierosie - Have you done this before and been able to see the result the next year? I have not done as much moving of bulb as I wanted to because of the old advice to wait until the foliage yellows. It never fails, I miss the window, getting busy with other things and the next thing you know, I turn around and the foliage is missing and I wonder where they were. [g] A few times I have dug them up with a large root ball and potted them up and then replanted them in the fall. I suppose that makes more work for myself too. So looking at the link, to what you were doing, it almost looks like you are shaking the bulb out of it's rootball and planting them bare root at that point. I would normally attempt to take as large a rootball as I could and disturb it as little as possible.