Description

Narcissus Tête-à-Tête is an iconic miniature daffodil and a cornerstone of Irish public planting, renowned for its dependable early performance, compact growth habit, and exceptional visual consistency. Flowering from late February through March, it signals the true start of spring with bright golden-yellow, reflexed petals and a clean, upright trumpet. Each bulb typically produces one or two blooms per stem, reaching a tidy height of 15–20 cm. It is ideal for front-of-border structure, small-space planting, and naturalistic low-level carpeting. Its ability to multiply steadily makes it a favourite for repeat annual performance in civic and institutional settings.

This cultivar excels in a wide range of soil types — from stony coastal ground and urban fill soils to heavier clay loams — and tolerates light shade as well as full sun. It thrives in Irish spring conditions, handling wet winters and exposed locations with ease. Tête-à-Tête is an ideal selection for roadside verges, school garden beds, nursing home borders, woodland margins, and churchyard edges. It also performs exceptionally well in raised containers, alpine troughs, rooftop planters, and terraced wall crevices, where root depth is limited but seasonal interest is vital.

Though unscented, its wide, open flower form is easily accessible to early-season pollinators, including queen bumblebees, mining bees, and hoverflies, and offering nectar and cover at a critical early point in the season. It makes a valuable contribution to pollinator corridors, biodiversity-focused municipal projects, and community planting efforts. When interplanted with low-growing spring species like Crocus tommasinianus, Iris reticulata, Scilla mischtschenkoana, or Anemone blanda Blue Shades, it provides an effective first layer in multi-tiered bulb succession strategies.

Highly suitable for biodiversity trails, therapeutic planting schemes, green school initiatives, and memorial gardens, Tête-à-Tête offers compact charm, environmental value, and extremely low maintenance requirements. Its proven track record across Ireland in both rural and urban sites makes it one of the most versatile tools in a landscape designer’s spring palette. A small daffodil with outsized seasonal presence.