I would add cosmo seeds to your list.

The classic plant to grow with daffodils is daylilies. You can buy an inexpensive mix in as large a quantity as you can afford and then divide every few years until the field is full. Plant the part that doesn’t yet have daylilies with annuals. Consider sunflowers as an addition to your other annuals.

How large is the field? I know of a couple of places with daffodil fields that are rough grass the remainder of the year, though that wouldn’t give you flowers.

Heaps of stuff. You can actively sow seeds between narcissus of a great many summer annuals such as poppies, cornflowers, corncockles, gillia, larkspur, linaria, cosmos, coreopsis (note I am concentrating on taller, airier plants. What is actually growing in the fields besides narcissus - have you maintained bare soil? Also, why annuals specifically. A great many perennials can be planted as young plug plants which will develop over successive seasons. On truth, a pic would be the most helpful.

Babs, I wouldn't consider (annual) sunflowers as they are always used in rotation because of their soil depleting qualities (much used in phyto-remediation, they leach the soil of heavy metals but also nutrients).Perennials, which are not lifted and replanted are a different proposition. However, if you wanted to establish a meadow, with leaner soil, then a season of sunflowers will definitely do the trick...as will grass hemi-parasites such as yellow rattle.

Late emergers like hibiscus and obedient plant could work as well.

I would do a wildflower mix seed for your area. I would also add some milkweed (butterfly weed).

It would be interesting to try a meadow with shortgrass prairie species that incorporates a large number of spring bulbs like you have. Haven't tried it myself so I can't suggest methods or plants, but Piet Oudolf and his "new perennial" cohort could be a wealth of inspiration!

The milkweed and butterfly weed would be good for the butterflies!

i'd second the wildflower seed mix. These are usually a combination of both annuals/biennials and perennials and can be found customized for specific areas. You'll have some first year color but also plants that will return and start to fill in the bare areas after the daffs finish.

In my area sun flowers are candy to deer.

Calendula is a hardy annual that drops Its seeds and sprouts and grows without any care on your part. They have a showy flower that comes in orange yellow and cream and bloom all summer. The cultivar has been around for centuries and the flowers have been used to make a herbal salve for cuts and burns. It would make a wonderful field of flowers after the daffodils are gone. You could mix it in with wildflowers or grow it alone. It sprouts at cooler temperatures early in the spring and you wouldn't have to worry about some being killed by the dying daffodils because Calendula can get to be tall if you plant Beauty and they drop so may seeds there is always another to take it's place if 1 dies

I planted Dallies. Their foliage hides the daffodil foliage. I fertilize the bulbs with bulb tone before they completely die out,

Helenium and Turtlehead? Made the butterflies (helenium) and bumblebees (turtlehead) crazy during the season...

As I mentioned, I am not sure daylily or any perennials is a good choice. Here is New York Metro area, the daffodil started to emerge around late March/earlier April, and they already began to fall to the ground now around end of April.

I actually started planting some DIANTHUS Superbus (this is a perennial) seedlings in between the daffodils. They are almost all covered by the falling daffodils now. The green foliage of daffodils may last a month until end of May. During this time period, the dianthus are covered by the falling daffodils and won't have much exposure to sunlight. I am not sure they can survive.

I don't know when daylily starts to grow, but I guess most perennials start to grow around this time. So they are going to have the same problems.

older daylily varieties tend to be really hardy and long lived,

in my z7 they start sprouting around Nov-Dec,

depending upon the weahter their foliage grows around mid March. Right now even transplanted, roughly heeled in clumps show around 20 inches of foliage,

I would not worry that the Daff foliage could harm them.

re seeding or annualsif you have a large area, I would go for something that you can either mow with some machine or have so competitive plants that weeding is not neccessairy.

just going by the amount of maintenace I would go for some meadow/ wildflower

The OPs daffodils are now intermixed with weeds. We don’t know what kind. What is the strategy for removing or outcompeting them?

2-3 mowing per year will take care of nasty ones, couchgrass wont bother the Daffs, taking the biomass away will establish some kind of meadow in the long run.

you probably have to choose, low maintenance and little flowers--> meadow regime

for more flowers you definetely need to (hand)weed between your disiered plats, some flowers, MUCH more work

Old style daylilies tend to be quite vigorous growers and IME will do better at coming up through dying daffodil foliage than Dianthus will. Or go with some of the annuals others have suggested.

Linaria, your suggestion of occasional mowing rules out daylilies I assume. Nhbabs, will daylilies prevail over tough perennial weeds like thistles and euonymus or must they all be killed off first?

Perennial weeds would have to be killed off first for any plantings, but just mowing won't take care of thistles and Euonymus either. My sister has thistles in her lawn, and that gets mowed really regularly, and I haven't found mowing a few times a year in a field situation to get rid of buckthorn or shrubby Lonicera/honeysuckle or Euonymus.

I am unclear what type of weeds are the problem in this situation.

1. "daylilies will do better at coming up through dying daffodil foliage than Dianthus will." That's likely true, as the stem of daylily looks stronger than dianthus. Judging by the size of peony growth nearby, the daylily may at the same height as the daffodil now start at same time/speed as peony. But won't the falling daffodil crush the daylily to certain degree? Here in zone6, I don't see any obvious daylily emerging. There were lots of them in the summer in the neighborhood.

2. If daylily can come up through the daffodil foliage, I guess peony may come up also? I can also plant some peony?

3. "Perennial weeds would have to be killed off first for any plantings". Not sure why this is needed. When planting perennial, I need to dig holes and will have to pull out the weeds root nearby. If I sow the seed for annual, I won't dig big holes, I guess that the annuals won't grow well with the Perennial weeds still around?

4. The soil is very loose and soft in the daffodil fields, unlike the much harder lawn. I didn't mow the weed in the past in fear of exposing and damaging the daffodils while mowing. I did pull some weeds by hand last year.

Thanks.

You can certainly mow the daffodils when the foliage dies back. Leave it a minimum of six weeks after flowering. They're frequently grown in grass and the mowing won't hurt them. You could add other naturalised bulbs such as Camassias as well as meadow species like blue bonnets. Obviously the plant choice depends on where in the world you live. Google 'Great Dixter Meadow' for images and ideas.