Spring Flowering Bulbs Festival

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Seasoned gardeners know that in order to enjoy beautiful flowers in the spring, now’s the time to put in the thought. After all, what lifts the heart more after the dark winter months than the first blooms appearing?

The next event in our 2025 plant festival series is a celebration of Spring Flowering Bulbs. Planting spring bulbs is one of the easiest ways of ensuring early colour in your garden. Planted correctly, these can simply be left over winter until they’re ready to make their appearance in the new year.

If you put in a little effort now – you’ll reap the rewards when that first snowdrop pokes its head out of the ground.

Add stunning colour with our best-selling bulbs…

Tulips

Tulips are a staple in any spring garden, available in shades of oranges, pinks, reds and whites. Tulips typically flower from late March into May providing long-lasting colour.

Daffodils

Often heralded as the first sign of spring, Daffodils are one of the earlier flowering spring bulbs. Flowering form February to May in a range of yellows, creams and whites, Daffodils add a drop of sunshine to the garden.

Hyacinths

Hyacinths are an early flowering bulb with elongated, fragrant flower heads of fragrant petals. When planted outside, flowers will appear from early to mid spring. Some varieties can also be grown indoors providing colour in time for Christmas!

Alliums

Alliums are the giants of spring bulbs, with globe like heads of tiny blooms that sit upon tall, green stems. They flower later than other bulbs, providing brilliants shades of purples, blues and whites from mid-spring to early Summer.

Create impactful displays…

Border & Container Displays

Create bright, impactful displays by planting bulbs in your beds and borders. They can even been planted alongside other spring flowering herbaceous plants to create a mixed spring display.

Bulbs can also be planted in all sorts of containers from terracotta pots to decorative planters and stone troughs. Choose the right size of bulb for the containers as it’s better for bulbs not to be overcrowded. For a small pot you might plant snowdrops and muscari, if you have a larger pot that will be ideal for daffodils and tulips.

Planting for naturalisation

If you have a larger space you want to cover, consider planting bulbs to create a lovely informal display. The pleasure of seeing snow drops, daffodils and crocuses popping up in open grass can’t be underestimated.

Scatter them across the lawn and dig a hole for them where they land, making sure there’s plenty of space between the bulbs. You can also plant bulbs you’d like to naturalise under trees, hedges and in less formal parts of your garden. Many gardeners happily naturalise spring bulbs in their borders too!

Layer Planting

You may have come across the phrase ‘layer planting’. All this means is that you plant layers of bulbs which come up at different times, giving colour for a longer period than if you just plant one layer.

It’s easy to do, just plant the bulbs that will come up last at the bottom, and layer up earlier flowering bulbs in layers above. For example, you might plant tulips on the lowest layer, followed by daffodils and lastly crocuses. Generally layer planting is three layers.

For hints and tips on layer planting, click the link below!

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Big Bulbs for the best blooms…

There are several ways to buy spring bulbs – individually, in packs or nets. Whichever you choose, one top tip is to invest in bigger bulbs. These will give you the best blooms and are likely to come up year after year.

Our loose tulips, hyacinths and 1.5kg daffodil packs are 20%* larger than standard pre-packed bulbs. These bulbs will produce bigger and better quality flowers. The stems will be sturdier so they are less likely to bend in the wind. The plant itself is more vigorous and robust producing a stronger, long-term bloom.

Look out for our Big Bulbs for the Best Blooms logos in-store on our Daffodils, Tulips and Hyacinths!

*20% increase is based on loose tulips, hyacinths and 1.5kg daffodil packs compared to pre-packed standard bulbs of the same variety. Bulbs sizes and size increase will vary depending on the variety of bulb.

Visit your local Otter Garden Centre to view our fantastic range of Spring Flowering Bulbs.

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