My wife has this nearly irrational belief that once a bulb-rooted plant finishes blooming, it has to be cut back to ground level. I, on the other hand, maintain you don’t cut it back at all, and if for some reason you do, you wait until the plants start shrivelling on their own; reason being the plant is creating sugars that are stored in the bulb to be used in the dormant period.
Yesterday, after repeatedly telling her to not cut the planter residents back, and my refusing to do so when she directed me to do it, she cut the daffodils and got into trouble with an undiscovered nest of fire ants.
So, gardening mavens, what is the answer: cut back, or let them die off on their own?
Dead head, but leave the rest of the plant alone. How is it going to survive with no leaves? Thousands of daffodils around here* get by very well all by themselves.
*Not Wales, Milton Keynes. For a supposed concrete jungle there isn’t half a lot of greenery. Daffodils all over the place.
The flowers (spent heads thereof) should be cut back. This prevents the plant from using its resources for seed production. The foliage will continue to collect energy for next year’s bloom and should not be cut back until after it wilts.
This is the correct answer. The OP could probably find multiple sites to support his argument, if the wifey doesn’t believe a bunch of anonymous folks on a message board, though.