The flowering bulbs were bought and planted by a local group set up by Hans-Otto Christiansen and Ingo Lentz, chairmen of the ‘Pro-Düsseldorf’ voluntary association.
They bought the crocus bulbs from Holland and used machines – and the efforts of more than 2,000 volunteers – to plant them along a 1.3 kilometre stretch of the river.
The weather is even cooperating this weekend, with meteorologists predicting a spring-like few days with temperatures of up to 17 degrees Celsius in some areas of the country.
The southwest as ever, will get the best of it on Saturday, the German Weather Service said, while elsewhere cloud cover will hide the sun and in the south, even produce rain.
Northeast of the Elbe, temperatures will creep up to only between eight and 11 degrees while elsewhere they could rise as far as 15 degrees.
Sunday is expected to be rainier in the southwest, central and southern areas of the country while the northwest will remain dry and have some sun with temperatures up to 10 degrees, or 13 along the Rhine.
But by the middle of next week the grey chill of winter will return, the weathermen warned.