After long winter months in dreary gray, you can look forward to the first signs of spring. Bulb flowers grown in pots will be available in stores as early as January. If you planted your flower bulbs in pots yourself in the fall, you'll have to wait a little longer.
Which spring bloomers are suitable for pots?
Spring bloomers in pots can be tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, crocuses or snowdrops. Suitable planters are terracotta pots, wooden boxes (€483.00 on Amazon), zinc tubs or disused teapots and cooking pots with drainage holes.
The spring bloomers
These primarily include onion plants, such as
- Tulips
- Daffodils
- Hyacinths
- Crocuses
- Snowdrops
But also primroses, violets, primroses, pansies and fat daisies bloom early in the year.
All of these spring flowers can be cultivated very well in pots or similar containers. If you missed the right time to plant in autumn, you don't have to miss out on the first greetings of spring. In large nurseries, spring flower bulbs are planted in pots early and kept cool to simulate the winter season. At the turn of the year, the pots are placed in warm greenhouses, which give the bulbs the illusion of spring. The plants begin to sprout and the first buds appear in January. Within a few days they open their flowers on the windowsill and herald the start of spring.
If you planted your own flower bulbs in the fall, you'll have to wait until the temperatures are a little warmer. Then the early bloomers will also venture into the light in the garden.
Suitable planters
The hobby gardener can take full advantage here. All kinds of containers can be converted into planters. Regardless of whether they are old terracotta pots, wooden boxes (€483.00 on Amazon), zinc tubs, old teapots or cooking pots, all of these containers can be planted. However, it is important that there is a drainage hole so that rain or water can drain away. Pots without a hole should not be left outside in the rain, as waterlogging quickly forms, which most onion plants cannot tolerate. Such pots should be protected and always watered carefully.
What to do with faded early bloomers?
In the garden, the faded spring flowers are cut off and can remain in the ground. The early bloomers, however, cannot go into the garden soil yet, it is usually too cold for that. However, you can unpot them and cultivate them in buckets, pots or even flower boxes. On sunny days they are allowed to go out to a place protected from the wind. In the evening they come back to the house. As soon as night frosts are no longer expected, the flower pots will remain outside for good.
