Brighten up your beds, borders and pots, with help from an expert.

Bulb maestro Johnny Walkers, winner of 25 consecutive gold medals at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, and host of the annual Dazzling Daffodils festival every March, is here to help you navigate the huge ranges of daffodils in garden centres and nurseries.

“Soil is important and daffodils like a moisture-retentive, well-drained soil, which sounds like a bit of a contradiction but they don’t like wet feet, but they don’t like to be where it’s really dry, either,” he explains.

Here, he suggests a number of different varieties to suit various settings.

There are multiple varieties of daffodils to suit different settings (Image: Alamy/PA)

In pots:

“Go for ‘Tête-à-tête’ in pots, which come out early and will last a long time.

"Another short one for pots is ‘Jetfire’, which is yellow and red.

“I often layer them, so if I have a big deep pot, I’ll put tulips in the bottom and then ‘Tête-à-tête’, then crocus on the top.

"That gives you three shows through the spring,” he says.

In beds:

“Choose your varieties carefully and they can flower for five months of the year. There’s a vast range of sizes and colours.

"Some people prefer a traditional yellow daffodil and for that, I’d go for ‘Carlton’ or ‘King Alfred’ types, but if you want something a bit different, you might try ‘Gentleman at Arms’, which has a yellow petal with a red centre and was created in honour of the Queen’s 90th birthday.”

He says that in the garden, you can space bulbs three to four inches apart because you know you’re going to leave them for several years, which gives them plenty of room for growth.

For resilience:

Some daffodils are better at springing up again after a heavy downpour or a spate of inclement weather.

“One of the best varieties is ‘Ice Follies’.

Johnny has some Ice Follies on the banks of a moat. 

"Bearing in mind that daffodils don’t like their feet in water, they have thrived at the bottom of that bank, each year coming back better and better,” says Walkers.

For naturalising:

If you want to naturalise daffodils in your lawn, ‘Ice Follies’ and ‘Carlton’ are good candidates, provided you have reasonably well-drained soil, he says. You should see a better show in three to four years.

For pollinators:

“That’s a difficult one because a lot of daffodils are in flower before there’s much activity for pollinators. But if the weather’s right, the ordinary trumpet, large varieties will attract pollinators.”