I paid a fortune at the garden center last July before realizing half of what I needed could have been planted months ago. Waiting until summer to buy full-grown blooming plants drains your wallet fast. If you get your bulbs in the ground right after the last frost, you’ll have massive blooms right when the serious heat hits.
Here are the ones we keep coming back to.
1. Dahlias for Constant Cutting
This is the one we reach for most. You plant a single ugly tuber in May, and by August you’ve got a massive bush pushing out dinner-plate-sized flowers that look like they belong in a florist’s cooler. Christina tested this on her back fence last year, and those plants put out dozens of blooms straight through until late October. They need full, baking sun and heavy watering twice a week during dry spells to keep the flowers coming. (They’re cheaper than you’d think, especially compared to buying cut flowers.)
2. Gladiolus for Tall Borders
These grow like colorful spears and take up almost zero horizontal space in your crowded beds. Just drop them in a narrow trench along the back row and let them shoot up behind your shorter, bushier plants. Since they get tall and top-heavy, you’ll want to stake them early so a random summer storm doesn’t flatten your entire display. You can find 15 Flowers That Come Back Every Year to plant directly in front of them to hide their somewhat messy lower leaves as they fade.
3. Calla Lilies for Elegant Pots
These grow beautifully in tight spaces and look incredibly expensive, even though the bulbs cost next to nothing. You can pack three bulbs into a single 12-inch pot, and they’ll fill out perfectly with those sleek, trumpet-shaped flowers and speckled leaves. Honestly, I’d skip this for indoor plants since they stretch too much and flop over without direct overhead light. Keep the soil slightly damp but never let it sit muddy, or the fleshy bulbs will rot out before they even sprout.
Now for the ones that handle the worst of the heat.
4. Canna Lilies for Instant Privacy
I dug up my neighbor’s discarded canna rhizomes two years ago, and now they form a six-foot solid privacy screen along my back patio. They explode into growth during hot weather and handle complete neglect like absolute champions. Dead simple. You just bury them a few inches deep, ignore them for a month, and watch them take over an entire corner of your yard (trust me on this one). They shoot up huge tropical leaves topped with bright red or yellow flags of color.
5. Caladiums for Dark Corners
Most summer bulbs need scorching sun to do their thing, but these actually prefer the shade. Their giant, wildly painted leaves brighten up dark spots under trees where almost nothing else survives the season. We use them alongside our 20 Tough Shade Plants To Grow Under Trees to create a massive pop of color without relying on a single flower. They die back when it gets cold, so don’t panic if they vanish in November.
6. Elephant Ears for Massive Scale
You want a tropical jungle look in your backyard, this is exactly how you get it. The leaves grow big enough to hide behind in just a couple of months, adding instant drama to a boring wooden fence line or an empty patio corner. They are incredibly thirsty plants, so mix a heavy dose of compost straight into the planting hole to trap moisture around the roots. Totally worth the effort. Once they take off, you’ll be amazed at how fast they grow in ninety-degree heat.
7. Pineapple Lilies for Something Weird
These send up thick stalks topped with star-shaped flowers that literally look like tiny green and purple pineapples sitting in your flower bed. They are compact enough for tight border edges and ignore most pests entirely, meaning you won’t be fighting bugs all summer long. Best bang for your buck on this whole list. Visitors always ask what they are, and they make surprisingly long-lasting cut flowers if you decide to bring a few indoors.
8. Tuberous Begonias for Hanging Baskets
If your front porch gets morning sun and afternoon shade, these will overflow their pots and cascade down by mid-July. They have thick, fleshy stems that hate drying out completely, so check them daily when the temperatures spike and the wind picks up. Check out our guide on 10 Best Flowers to Grow in Containers for potting soil mixes that keep them happy all season. The double-flowered varieties look like miniature roses trailing over the sides.
9. Freesia for Sweet Fragrance
You plant these near your seating areas, open windows, and walkways, not out in the back of the yard where nobody goes. The scent is heavy and sweet, especially in the evening when the air cools down a bit and the fragrance hangs around. No tools needed. Just poke them into soft soil with your finger and leave them alone until the slender green shoots appear. They produce wiry stems lined with tubular flowers that bloom for weeks.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Do I need to dig them up in the fall?
If you live in a cold climate with freezing winters, yes. Most summer bulbs turn to mush if the ground freezes solid around them. You just dig them up after the foliage completely dies back, brush off the excess dirt, and store them in a dry cardboard box indoors until spring rolls around again. (Yes, really, it’s that easy.)
2. How deep should I plant them?
The general rule is to plant a bulb three times as deep as it is tall. A two-inch tall bulb needs to sit about six inches below the soil surface, while a massive elephant ear bulb might need a deeper hole to stay anchored. Don’t stress over the exact math. If you’re close enough, they’ll find their way to the sun.
3. Can I plant these in pots instead of the ground?
You absolutely can, and it’s a great strategy if your soil is heavy clay that holds too much water. Pots actually heat up much faster in the spring sun, so bulbs planted in containers often sprout a few weeks earlier than the ones buried in the cold ground. Just make sure the pot has heavy drainage holes at the bottom.
Start With Just Two
Don’t overwhelm yourself by buying every single bulb variety at the garden center. Pick two, get them in the dirt after the last frost, and water them in well. It’s a cheap way to guarantee serious color when your spring flowers fade out. Ready to expand your garden? Check out 11 Self-Seeding Flowers That Provide Continuous Seasonal Color to keep the momentum going!