Does the street get salted in winter?

Yes, but the street doesn’t really drain that direction.

You didn't cut off the green leaves before they withered and turned brown, did you?

Nope.

near the street...could it be dog pee?

Are they all the same kind of daffodils? Wow it is hard to kill daffodils. They don't like soggy soil and will rot, and sometimes if hungry enough rodents will eat the bulbs. Maybe some are planted deeper than others? Are they planted in a sunny location?

Other than poor drainage or rotting, the primary reason daffs fail to reappear is an infestation of Narcissus bulb fly. This accounts for huge loses of narcissus bulbs in this country every year and is quite common.

You can check for this by digging up the bulbs and examining them. The fly larvae will have tunneled through and eaten most of the bulb by the time they are ready to pupate in spring. You may get a few weak, yellowed leaves from an infected bulb but often they just disappear completely.

Wow I never heard of the Narcissus bulb fly. Great another frecken bug. I will have to make a note of this if mine ever fail.

Salty run off from the street is not the only way you can get the ground close to a road salt contaminated. When It is dry and windy the wind picks up the salt and wafts it over the ground. I have a friend who planted cedar trees about 25 feet from a busy road that gets salted in winter. Those trees all winter killed on the road side. The branches on the road side had no needles at all while there was green growth on the house side. After the second winter they were completely dead. Nothing she planted there after did well either. She didn't want to leave the ground bare so she made a dry river bed out of that flower bed.

After a rainy summer I sometimes lose entire clumps of daffodils due to basal rot of the dormant bulbs. The whole clump just fails to return, and even if I dig the bulbs I still lose a large portion of them... so I'm thinking they're most susceptible from when they first start to go dormant through the whole summer. Some varieties are more likely to rot than others, I never have this happen to the smaller jonquilla types, but trumpets seem to be the first to go.

If you have bulb flies there should be a few bulbs which return and only grow thin, grassy foliage from small sideshoots. The fly will kill the main growing tip and often the bulb responds by growing small offsets. Daffodils are big enough bulbs that the fly maggots don't always kill the whole thing.

Are they all the same variety? I have some very late bloomers that are no up yet.

I think you have to make sure that the daffodils you plant are suited to your area. I have asked Brent & Becky's in the past what would they recommend for my area. I gave them as much info as I could such as soil type, zone, etc.

It’s possible that Narcissus flies are present in my yard. Over the years, I’ve noticed what I thought was a bumblebee but could be the fly—it has that distinctive red-orange band on the thorax. But apparently there is considerable color variation in the fly, and there are many species of bumblebee.

According to what I’ve been reading, the adult flies disappear by June. I don’t remember if I see the bumblebee/fly all summer. I do remember that I see it on flowers, as opposed to foliage; apparently foliage is typical. I’m pretty sure I see it on a composite, which may mean that it’s present later than June. This summer I will just have to pay more attention.

Thanks to hairmetal for starting this thread, and to all of you who have pitched in with info.

Katob—I wish I could lose bulbs from summer rain. There is no rain here in the summer (everything is irrigated) and by August a friend and I are so rain-starved that we joke about flying somewhere to catch a hurricane so that we can get drenched.

Maylingsmom—over the years, I’ve tried to track down varieties that might do better in my yard (I think low water needs is key) with little success—‘Sound’ was just luck.

Below is a picture taken yesterday. There is a bunch of ‘Sound’ at the bottom. Above that is the remains of a group of yellow trumpets. Above and to the right of the trumpets is another group of ‘Sound.’ All were planted on the same day in 2013, and each group had approximately the same number of bulbs. This year, there will be 3 blooms on the few remaining trumpets (unusual). Possibly, as Katob said, damaged bulbs were able to produce offsets, which are now blooming?

The fly will kill the main growing tip and often the bulb responds by growing small offsets. Daffodils are big enough bulbs that the fly maggots don't always kill the whole thing.

After I got bulb flies in a small grouping of mixed daffodils here I was actually able to compensate with fertilization - you wouldn't have known there was ever a problem once the fertilizer came into play.

That's good to know!

Good article on daffodil blindness (non flowering). https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?PID=658

Yesterday, I bought bulb fertilizer. This evening, I will put it down.

The daffodil blindness article is interesting, maylingsmom. Thanks for providing the link.