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Daffodils
Daffodils
March–May
Each year the Garden springs to life with hundreds of thousands of daffodils. Find new favorites among the latest hybrids on Daylily/Daffodil Walk, and don’t miss Daffodil Hill in April when it’s a sea of yellow and white, including many antique cultivars planted in the early 20th century. Explore the Rock Garden for tiny species daffodils no more than three inches high, and find drifts of glowing color nearby in Daffodil Valley, where the Liasson Family Narcissus Collection is located.
In October 2015, NYBG began a dramatic expansion of the historic Narcissus plants in this collection to commemorate the Garden’s 125th anniversary.
Dig Deeper
The Collection
The many, many thousands of daffodils you see blooming across Daffodil Hill and our 250 acres each year span a wide variety of species and forms! Specifically:
- 20 species
- 400 cultivated forms
- 776 accessions
- Over 500,000 individual plants
The Locations
The daffodils aren’t hard to spot in spring. From our dedicated collections to small pockets of blooming beauty throughout the Garden, they’re a highlight of the season.
Rock Garden
- Holds many diminutive cultivars
- Holds many of our species Narcissus, which prefer the sharp drainage that the Rock Garden can provide
Liasson Family Narcissus Collection
- Planted in 1982
- Shows a broad diversity of division types, flower shapes, and flower colors
Daffodil Hill
- Site of many heirloom cultivars
- First planting of 47,000 bulbs saw the Garden’s first large drifts of flowers
- By 1926, numbers had increased to 200,000 bulbs of more than 150 varieties
Daylily-Daffodil Walk
- Initially planted in 1987
- Displays newer trends in daffodil breeding
- Provides a venue to trial new daffodil introductions
- Acts as a successful springtime companion plant to the Hemerocallis (Daylily) collection
Seasonal Walk
- Part of a mixed spring bulb display
- Features white- and pink-flowered cultivars
Perennial Garden
- Displays a wide variety of cultivars including Narcissus ‘Lovely Lynden’, named after the Perennial Garden’s designer, Lynden Miller
The Facts
Ethel Anson Peckham (1879–1965) spent tremendous time and resources to develop this collection.
- Peckham became an Honorary Curator of Iris and Narcissus at the Garden in 1927.
- In 2015, we kicked off the Million Daffodil Initiative to celebrate the 125th year of NYBG.
- Since then, we planted approximately 425,000 new bulbs to restore the display.
The Archives
Our Steere Herbarium is home to millions of plant specimens that tell the story of our planet’s botanical biodiversity across centuries of time, which informs our efforts to save the plants of our world for future generations.
Peruse the herbarium specimens and stories that live here at NYBG.
