My daffodils have disappeared. Please help!

[OneCentRob]

3 years ago we had too many daffodills in our rose bed so we thinned them out a bit and transplanted some of the bulbs to other beds in the garden. The following year, all the translpanted bulbs in the other beds came up, but in the original bed hardly any came up at all. Consequently, last year we planted a few more bulbs in the rose bed. This year, not one bulbs in the rose bed has come up. All the others daffodils in the garden have come up as usual are are starting to flower, but there isn't a single daffodil shoot in the rose bed.

We are aware that we get various animals coming into our garden, including foxes and deer, which eat various plants but this does not explain why only one bed has been affected, and why it has been affected to suddenly and severely.

In case it makes any difference, I should probably add that we live in West Sussex in the UK, in a rural location with a west facing garden on fairly steep incline.

Any advice on how to encourage the daffodils to return, or possible explanation as to why they may have disappeared would be very welcome.

Rob

[Johnny Borborigmi]

Daffs dig themselves deeper every year. Dig them up, separate the babies and replant at the proper depth.

Do this every 3-4 years.

[OneCentRob]

Thanks for your reply. The strange thing is that it is only since doing what you suggest that the daffs have stopped coming up in that bed. Normally we just leave them and they come up every year.

[brooklyn1]

All bulbs dig themselves deeper each year until eventually they can't reach the surface and so they die... but they leave behind their bulbettes and it is those you see coming up each year. The thing is they will soon become too crowded and so will greatly benefit from being dug up and thinned... and that's a good time to amend the soil in those areas. Some people interfere with the natural cycle by using perforated plastic trays to prevent bulbs from digging deeper but I think that practice is counter productive, the bulbs just become over crowded in fewer years. With regular thinning the area bulbs occupy becomes greater and greater, when naturalizing bulbs be sure to leave plenty of room for them to expand... what at first looks like a sparse planting will in like five years become too crowded.