Looking like a platinum-blond pheasant’s-eye narcissus, ‘Dreamlight’ features a wide, flat, rippled eye of champagne-white that’s perfectly set off by a narrow ribbon of orange suffused with pink. Backed by round, moon-like petals, it’s ethereal and unique – and in 2009 it won the Wister Award, the American Daffodil Society’s highest honor! 3 W-GWR, 17-19”, late-blooming, zones 5-7S/9WC, from Holland. Chart to compare.

Any Top Ten list of history’s greatest daffodils would have to include this legendary trumpet. Once the world’s best-known and best-loved, it’s been “commercially extinct” for decades, preserved by just a handful of collectors — and we’re thrilled to have enough to offer it. With a deep gold trumpet and a distinctive wiggle to its softer yellow petals, it’s a daffodil for the ages. 1 Y-Y, 18-20”, zones 5-8aS/10WC, Holland. Chart to compare.

One of the most popular daffodils of all time, this landmark beauty helped spark the modern world’s love affair with daffodils when it was introduced alongside ‘Emperor’ just after the Civil War. With pure white petals and a slender yellow trumpet, it’s dewy fresh and eternally regal. Our 2009 Bulb of the Year, 1 W-Y, 18-20”, zones 5-7bS/9WC, from Holland. Chart to compare.

“If I could have but one,” wrote A.M. Kirby in 1907 in America’s first book about daffodils, “I would choose this.” It’s a favorite of ours, too, a glorious Victorian trumpet full of wildflower vigor and grace. It’s extra early, blooming as the crocus fade, and multiplies with gusto. 1 Y-Y, 14-15”, zones 4-7S/9WC, from Holland. Chart to compare.

Celebrated in gardens for over 400 years, ‘Maximus’ or ‘Trumpet Major’ is an especially fine form of N. hispanicus with a wild, primeval look. Its trumpet is boldly scalloped and flared, it’s petals make a dramatic star, and it lifts up its face as if worshipping the sun. It’s been treasured by Elizabethan, Victorian, and Arts-and-Crafts gardeners alike – and now it’s your turn! 1 Y-Y, 14-16”, zones 5-8aS/10WC, from Holland. Chart to compare.

Extra-early and extra-beautiful, this wildflowery trumpet daffodil is a bicolor N. pseudonarcissus (see Lent lily). Millions were once harvested for bouquets sold in London’s Covent Garden, and it’s great for naturalizing. As daffodil connoisseur Alec Gray wrote in 1955, “a drift of it is a thing of... lightness and grace.” 1 W-Y, 14-16”, zones 5-8aS/10WC, from Holland. Chart to compare.

This sweet little teddy-bear daffodil has grown wild for centuries on the coast of Wales, and its early blooms were once rushed to London to be sold at Covent Garden. Its trumpet is shorter than most wild daffodils (see Lent lily), adding to its pudgy charm. 13 Y-Y, 8-10”, zones 5-8bS/10WC, from Holland. Chart to compare.

“Generally knowne everywhere,” wrote herbalist John Gerard in 1597 about this fragrant wildflower he called Primrose Peerless. Its many folk names today include Loving Couples, Cemetery Ladies, and April Beauty. It has two blooms per stem, white with tiny citron cups, and it’s wonderfully late-blooming. Formerly N. biflorus, 13 W-Y, 12-14”, zones 6-8bS/10WC, from Texas. Chart to compare.

With long outer petals that swoop back and curl like those of a turk’s-cap lily, and shorter inner petals crimped into a squiggly rosette, this is one of the most interesting — and rarest — of the Victorian doubles. 10-12”, zones 5-8aS/10WC, from the British National Collection. Chart to compare.

The embodiment of spring’s silvery blue skies, this heavenly hyacinth is old enough to have been grown by Florence Nightingale and Charles Dickens. Lost to us years ago when it went “commercially extinct” in the Netherlands, it has been preserved by our good friend (and former potato farmer) Alan Shipp of the British National Collection of Hyacinths. 10-12”, zones 5-8aS/10WC, from England. Chart to compare.