Off to the garden – Planting flower bulbs in spring

What fits better to a sunny summer than colorful flowers? To turn your garden into a colorful carpet of blooms, grab your gardening tools as early as spring.

When spring is in the air, the new gardening season begins. In May, it’s time to dig and plant, as now it’s time to put the flower bulbs for the summer in the ground. Once you’ve decided how your garden should look for the summer season, the gardening work can begin.

For summer bloomers, the time has now come to prepare for flowering. The bulbs and tubers are first planted for this purpose. Pay attention to the temperatures, as not all bulbs and tubers tolerate late frosts. Frost-resistant flower bulbs like lilies can be planted directly into the ground once it has thawed. However, other plants should only be planted after the "Ice Saints" (Eisheiligen) in May, when frost is no longer expected. This applies to plants like anemones, freesias, montbretias, or steppe candles, which come from frost-free regions in South Africa and South America and do not tolerate our cold periods well. Dahlias are also among the sensitive summer bloomers, but you can try to start them in pots in March. This speeds up their development, and in May they can be transplanted.

Good preparation brings the best results. The choice of location for your flowers is not only based on aesthetic decisions. Above all, the needs of the plants are decisive. Do they like full sun? Do they need a lot or little space? In general, a protected location is important, and most summer flower bulbs prefer sunny spots, but not too hot. A well-drained, humus-rich, and nutrient-dense soil is essential. In a pot, soil that can retain enough water is best used. For container planting, the vessel should have a sufficient size of about 20 centimeters in diameter and should be placed, for example, near a house wall.

When planting flower bulbs in the spring, it's not just about the right timing. The correct planting depth is also important. Some summer flowers grow tall and therefore need enough support in the soil. If you don't know the planting depth of your flower bulbs, you can follow the rule of thumb that the bulbs should be planted two to three times as deep as their size. This means that larger flower bulbs need to be planted deeper. Begonias or Montbretias should be planted up to a maximum of 8 centimeters deep, while dahlias, gladioluses, or lilies should be planted up to 10 centimeters. The soil type also influences the planting depth. If your garden soil is very light, it's better to plant the flower bulbs a little deeper than recommended. On the other hand, with very firm soil, you can plant them at a shallower depth.