How many flower bulbs do I need?

The number of bulbs planted per square metre is a matter of taste. When you use the bulbs to cheer up a perennial border people nowadays often choose to plant them loosely.

Jacqueline van der Kloet, garden designer and uncrowned Queen of the bulb industry, advises to mix all the colours you want in a wheelbarrow and gently throw them through the border. On the spot each bulb has landed you plant it. This will be a little bit thicker in one place and hardly anything on another place.

Almost always this way of planting creates a very harmonious and natural look in the springtime and the colour theme you choose as well as all the individual bulbs are often at their best when planted this way.

Spacing of the bulbs per square metre

But if you want to create bulbs plantings like you see in Keukenhof with solid plantings full of colour you should stick to the following numbers per square metre:

Springblooming flower bulbs

Variety Number
Allium large flowering (like Globemaster) 10
Allium mid sized (like Purple Sensation) 40
Allium small (like moly) 120
Anemone blanda 150
Camassia 20
Chionodoxa 200
Crocus 120
Daffodils  40
Daffodils miniature (like Tete a Tete) 80
Eranthis 150
Erythronium 40
Fritillaria big (like imperialis) 15
Fritillaria small (like meleagris) 100
Galanthus 150
Hyacinth 50
Hyacinthoides 70
Ipheion 150
Iris small (like reticulata) 100
Ixia 150
Leucojum 40
Lilium martagon 25
Muscari 150
Puschkinia 200
Scilla 100
Tulips  60
Tulips miniature (like bakeri Lilac Wonder) 120

Summerblooming flower bulbs

Variety Number
Amarine 20
Begonia 9
Chasmanthe 9
Dahlia 5
Eucomis 9
Lelie 9
Nerine 25
Zantedeschia 9

In these cases we take the view that you use the top sized bulbs like they are offered in our web shops, when you use smaller bulbs you need to add up a little to numbers.