Garden Q&A: What month is best to plant summer bedding?

Whether you're a gardening beginner or expert, Irish Examiner columnist Peter Dowdall has the answer to your questions

QUESTION

Is it to early for me to plant out summer bedding plants?

ANSWER

I do love a bit of enthusiasm in the garden, but it's still too early I would say. 

Summer bedding, normally used in beds, pots and containers, is a great way to introduce a splash of instant colour to the garden but these plants are frost-tender. 

Irish Examiner gardening columnist Peter Dowdall. Picture: John Allen

All summer bedding plants, whether grown by yourself or sourced in a garden centre, are started as seeds sown indoors. 

Once germinated, these seedlings are kept under glass to develop into larger plants. 

Moving them out too early whilst there is still a risk of frost can lead to losing all of them. 

Whether you have grown them yourself or purchased from a garden centre, they will need to be “hardened off”. 

This means moving them out for a few hours daily over a week or so, allowing them longer outside each day. 

I wouldn’t start moving them out though until May brings warmer days and nights. After acclimatising them like this, they will be far more likely to survive once planted out.

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