An expert has revealed the flowers that gardeners should plant now so that they bloom in summer and give their outdoor spaces a lovely splash of colour. Gardeners are gearing up to reap the rewards of their hard work this spring, hoping for some in their gardens as the summer gets underway. While many flowers will have had to be planted weeks ago, there is one you can plant now to make sure it blooms in summer and gives you some extra colour later in the season.

The flower that people should plant now is the colourful and vibrant dahlia. These flowers grow in a range of colours from rich orange to baby pink and, unlike many other flowers in a British garden, they bloom in the latter half of the summer season. One expert at the told the Daily Express why gardeners should plant these flowers now and what results they can expect.

Lauren from Dahlia Beach said that now is a great time to plant dahlia tubers because they bloom later than other . She revealed: "Now is a great time to get your tubers in. What we do is, when you plant them, when you first put them in, give them a little bit of water. Don't give them much until you've got some shoots on them. You don't want them to rot.

"Once you've got about two to three sets of leaves on them, cut off the top ones and then you'll get more shoots. More shoots means more flowers. Once they have flowered, once you start cutting the flowers, the more you cut the more you'll get. It's great, it's like a never-ending cycle.

"They will flower from about August. It might be a bit earlier this year because we've had some nice warm weather. Then they will flower up until the first frost which could be around October time."

She added: "It's lovely because you get a lot of early summer flowers but these are really nice autumn flowers. Once everything sort of dies off come July or August time, that's when your dahlias come through to give more colour to your garden. You've go a whole variety of colours like oranges, baby pinks, dark pinks, hot pinks, peaches, all sorts of colours."

Although dahlias are native to Mexico and Central America, they have become popular around the world, including the UK. According to , dahlias are known for how abundantly they grow.

Another benefit is how long they last, blooming in midsummer to give your garden a nice refresh halfway through the sunny season and lasting right up until the first frost, keeping some pife in your garden as other things begin to die off.