Jonquil

Appalachian-Blue Ridge forests

Arizona Mountains forests

Atlantic coastal pine barrens

Blue Mountains forests

Central Pacific Northwest coastal forests

Central Tallgrass prairie

Central-Southern Cascades Forests

What it needs

Conditions

Light

Full sun / Part shade

Water

Moderate water

Soil pH

Acid / Neutral

Acid is below pH 6.0, neutral 6.0 to 8.0, alkaline above 8.0.

Spacing

3"

Habit

Small clump-forming bulb with upright tufts of narrow, round, rush-like dark green leaves and slender stems of one to five flowers

Care tips

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Give it sun and sharp drainage: it takes heat and drought, but the bulbs rot in wet, poorly drained soil.

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Plant in quantity: the Missouri Botanical Garden suggests groups of at least six bulbs, up to large sweeping drifts.

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Leave the narrow leaves until they brown on their own: they feed the bulb for next year.

Lifecycle

Planting

Plant the bulbs in fall in quantity, 3 to 5 inches deep and 3 to 6 inches apart, per NC State Extension and the Missouri Botanical Garden, in full sun or part shade with any shade behind the planting, since the flowers face the sun. The Missouri Botanical Garden says it does best in organically rich, sandy loam that drains well; NC State suggests bone meal or superphosphate in the planting soil. Sources disagree on lime (see the climate notes).

Transplanting

The Missouri Botanical Garden says the bulbs multiply rapidly and can be left undisturbed for a number of years. To divide, Plants For A Future says to lift them after the leaves die down in early summer, replanting large bulbs at once or storing them somewhere cool until fall.

Early growth

Give the bulbs moisture while the leaves are growing; NC State Extension says it tolerates heat and drought but not very wet soil, and Plants For A Future that it is easily grown in a dry, sunny position.

Maturity

A mature clump stands 9 to 12 inches tall and 6 to 9 inches wide, per NC State Extension and the Missouri Botanical Garden. Remove the seed heads if you like, but leave the leaves until they have browned: they feed next year's bulb. Neither source lists a serious pest or disease; watch for slugs, snails, bulb mites and narcissus bulb fly, and for bulb rot in poorly drained soil.

Propagation

NC State Extension recommends division. Plants For A Future adds seed, sown as soon as it is ripe in a cold frame, with the seedlings left in their pot for two years and grown on for another one or two before planting out.

Native range

Climate notes

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NC State Extension, the Missouri Botanical Garden and Plants For A Future all list Narcissus jonquilla for USDA hardiness zones 4a-8b. That makes it the hardier of the two bunch-flowered narcissi in this catalog: the paperwhite daffodil (Narcissus tazetta) is listed only for 7a-10b.

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A bulb for sun, heat and dry summers: NC State Extension and the Missouri Botanical Garden both list drought tolerance, NC State lists heat tolerance, and Plants For A Future says it is easily grown in a dry, sunny position. Plants For A Future records it wild on rocky hillsides, often on limestone, and in meadows and damp places.

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The native range here is taken from Kew's World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP), the dataset POWO publishes: Spain and Portugal only. The Missouri Botanical Garden narrows that to southern and central Spain and southern and eastern Portugal, and Wikipedia records it as Data Deficient on the IUCN Red List. WCVP lists it as introduced in France, Germany, Italy, Great Britain, the northwest Balkans, European Turkey, Madeira and British Columbia, and in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Texas and Utah. USDA PLANTS lists it as introduced in the lower 48 states with no invasive or noxious status, and Plants For A Future gives no weed potential.

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Sources disagree on lime. NC State Extension asks for lime-free soil and gives an acid to neutral pH, while Plants For A Future records it wild on limestone and says it prefers an alkaline soil of pH 7 to 8. It grows across that range; good drainage matters more.

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Sources differ on detail. The Missouri Botanical Garden calls it a late species flowering from the end of April into May, NC State Extension mid spring, Plants For A Future April and Wikipedia late spring. NC State gives one to three flowers per stem, the Missouri Botanical Garden one to five, and Wikipedia up to five, yellow or white.

Similar plants

Browse lateral options with similar roles, light needs, size, or native-range overlap; these are not filtered for a better climate fit.

Hyacinthus orientalis

Common hyacinth

A spring-flowering bulb grown for dense upright spikes of waxy, star-shaped florets in blue, purple, pink, red, or white - famous for an intense, sometimes overpowering fragrance. Plant bulbs in mid-fall for an April bloom; flower quality typically declines after the first year, so the densest spikes often need replanting every couple of seasons. Every part of the bulb is mildly toxic and the sap can cause contact dermatitis, so gloves are advised when planting.

A native southeastern US perennial with red-and-yellow tubular flowers in upright clusters - among the most spectacular hummingbird-pollinated native perennials and a top-tier butterfly + pollinator garden plant. Shade-tolerant + clumping; slowly naturalizes by self-seeding in suitable conditions.

One of the latest and most elegant narcissi, the poet's daffodil opens in late spring with pure white, gently reflexed petals around a small, flat, yellow cup edged in crimson, carrying a strong sweet fragrance that gives it its other name, pheasant's eye. A hardy, fall-planted spring bulb from the mountain meadows of southern and central Europe, it naturalises beautifully in grass for meadow plantings and, like all daffodils, is reliably deer- and rodent-resistant because every part is toxic.

An exquisite, delicate spring bulb grown for its solitary, nodding, bell-shaped flowers, which are uniquely chequered in a chessboard pattern of purple and dusky pink (or, on white forms, a faint ghost of the same lattice) and held on slender stems over fine grey-green leaves. The pendent, snake's-head bells give it both its common name and its quiet, wild charm. Native across much of Europe (POWO, Kew), it is a treasured but much-declined wildflower of old damp meadows, and its decline is a real conservation concern, which makes it a genuinely good plant for naturalizing in moist grass to help restore a lost habitat. Two things are load-bearing: unlike most spring bulbs it wants soil that stays moist, even damp, and does not dry out, so it fails in hot, dry spots; and it is toxic if eaten, since the bulb and all parts contain alkaloids. It is also a valuable early nectar source for the first bumblebees of the year. Hardy across USDA zones 3a-8b, it carries the RHS Award of Garden Merit and is rated fully hardy (H5).

Fritillaria meleagris

Snake's-head fritillary

A bold, clump-forming evergreen perennial from South Africa, grown for big rounded umbels of trumpet-shaped blue (or white) flowers held on tall bare stalks above arching, strap-shaped leaves in mid-to-late summer. It is widely sold as "lily of the Nile," but that is a misnomer - the plant is South African (the Cape provinces and KwaZulu-Natal), not from the Nile. Spectacular and easy in warm climates, this evergreen Agapanthus is frost-tender, so in cold-winter areas it is grown in a container and overwintered under cover. The RHS has given several Agapanthus praecox forms its Award of Garden Merit and rates this evergreen species half-hardy (H3 - needs winter protection).

Asiatic hybrids are the easiest lilies to grow and among the first to bloom - rigid, unbranched 3-4 foot stems carry large, mostly upward- and outward-facing flowers 4 to 6 inches wide in nearly every color but blue, often with dark basal spotting. The flowers are showy and good for cutting but, unlike most other lily groups, usually have little or no fragrance. Every part of the plant is dangerously toxic to cats.

Lilium (Asiatic hybrid)

Asiatic lily