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Multiple daffodil shoots
I planted those daffodils that have multiple small heads rather than one big one (some of which have 5 flowers and others 13!) but some of them have an extra one or two shoots growing from the bulb. None of these seems to be producing flowers, only the main stem does that, so what are they and should they be removed?
Are they like tomato suckers that just drain nutrients needlessly?
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Hi Tomsk, they are bulblets that naturally split from the main bulb - this is the way they usually propagate themselves as seeds often don't fully develop in daffodils.
Leave them as they are and let the leaves die down naturally. Once that has happened you can split the baby bulbs from the main one and you then have free bulbs for next year!
They might take a couple of years to reach flowering size though.
She's having babies.. just as Bob said.. leave them alone for a few years once you plant them out, then dig up and divide. Free plants.
Ha! So I can probably end up with a house and garden full of daffs just by buying a couple of small bags of bulbs and letting nature take its course for a few years! Though doesn't it suggest that the 'new' bulbs I bought were already a few years old when I got them?
Anyway, that's great news, but out of interest, if the bulblets grow attached to the parent bulb, how do they spread across a field properly? It's obvious how a bird eats seeds and its droppings scatter them over many miles, but bulbs growing on top of one another would surely grow too densely?