If you are anything like me, the dream is to have a gorgeous garden regardless of the time of year. Having a garden that is always colorful will take time, persistence, patience, and planning. Just like any other garden, a garden that is always in color will need updating and care as time goes on. Here are twelve items to consider when planning an ever-colorful garden.
Spring is the perfect time to fill your garden with beautiful plants that will bloom throughout the seasons. With the right mix of annuals, perennials, bulbs, and shrubs, you can create stunning displays that last from early spring to late fall. Here are 18 gorgeous plants to provide color in your garden all season long during spring.
Early Spring Bloomers
These beauties are the first to wake up and show their flowers in the garden They provide a burst of color after the dreary winter months.
1. Tulips
Tulips are a spring garden classic for good reason – their brightly colored blooms are a welcoming sight after winter. Plant bulbs in fall for a dazzling display in early spring. Go for early, mid, and late season varieties to prolong the show.
2. Daffodils
Nothing says spring quite like daffodils. The familiar trumpet-shaped yellow blooms naturalize easily and provide waves of cheerful color. Plant the bulbs in autumn for flowers in early spring.
3. Hyacinths
Hyacinths bloom early in the season, injecting intense fragrance and vibrant hues into the garden. Plant bulbs in the fall and you’ll have sweetly scented purple pink, yellow or white flower spikes in early spring.
4. Pansies
Pansies are cool weather lovers that produce abundant blooms in spring and fall, Their cheery faces in a myriad of colors brighten up containers and garden beds, Plant them in early spring for best results,
5. Violas
Similar to pansies, violas thrive in cool weather and bloom prolifically in spring and fall. Their smaller flowers feature rich colors and unique face patterns. Violas self-seed readily, providing years of lovely spring blooms.
6. Flowering Quince
Flowering quince bursts forth with blazing blooms in early spring before its leaves emerge. The fiery scarlet, orange, pink or white flowers on this deciduous shrub are a stunning sight. Plant it as a focal point in a mixed border.
Mid Spring Bloomers
As spring transitions to warmer weather, this next wave of plants starts to bloom. They bridge the gap between early spring ephemerals and late spring perennials.
7. Columbine
Columbines produce delicate, bell-shaped blooms in shades of red, yellow, pink, purple and white. These perennials are short-lived but easily self-seed, providing charming spring color year after year. Plant them in drifts for a romantic effect.
8. Bleeding Heart
A cottage garden favorite, bleeding heart features rows of heart-shaped pink and white flowers dangling from arching stems. This old-fashioned perennial goes dormant after spring blooming, so plant it near later perennials.
9. Lily-of-the-Valley
The sweetly scented white bell flowers of lily-of-the-valley make it a lovely addition below trees and shrubs. It emerges early, spreading elegantly via underground rhizomes to carpet woodland gardens and shady beds.
10. Sweet Woodruff
Sweet woodruff is prized for its heady fragrance and starry white flowers in spring. Its pretty whorls of leaves remain attractive all season long. Let it spread as a carefree groundcover in shady spots.
11. Lungwort
Lungwort features clusters of blue, pink or white bell-like blooms atop its silver-spotted foliage in spring. This dependable perennial thrives in shade, spreading to form a dense groundcover. The leaves stay attractive after the flowers fade.
12. Creeping Phlox
Creeping phlox blankets the spring garden with masses of bright blooms. It grows just 6 inches tall, making it perfect to adorn rock gardens, edges, and even slopes. Vivid colors include white, pink, red, lilac and blue.
Late Spring Bloomers
These beauties extend the spring flowering season with their mid to late spring blooms. Add them to keep your garden looking fresh and colorful even as summer approaches.
13. Peonies
Peonies are stars of the late spring garden, showing off huge, romantic blooms in shades like pink, red, coral, white and yellow. Plant the long-lived perennials in fall, and enjoy the sumptuous flowers for years to come.
14. Beard Tongue
Beard tongue sends up tall spires covered in tubular blooms from late spring into summer. These deer-resistant perennials come in colors like white, pink, red and lavender. Grow them in borders, meadows and pollinator gardens.
15. Poppies
Poppies produce satiny flowers in dazzling shades like red, orange, pink, purple, yellow and white. Choose annual and perennial types like Shirley poppies, oriental poppies, and Iceland poppies for continuous blooms from late spring to fall.
16. Catmint
Catmint blooms for weeks in late spring with spiky lavender-blue flowers loved by pollinators. This hardy perennial has aromatic foliage that deters deer and rabbits. Plant it in borders, containers or pollinator gardens.
17. Salvia
Salvias include a wide range of spiky bloomers like meadow sage and Caradonna sage. The tubular flowers attract hummingbirds and butterflies from late spring into fall. Plant these versatile perennials in borders, beds and containers.
18. Alliums
Alliums send up spherical blooms on tall, slender stems just as spring turns to summer. Varieties like Allium christophii and Purple Sensation provide huge 8-10 inch flower heads that last for weeks.
Start Planning Your All Season Garden
With a strategic selection of bulbs, annuals, perennials, and shrubs, you can have continuous color in your spring garden from the first daffodils of early spring to the lush peonies of late spring.
Use this list of 18 beauties that bloom over the seasons as a guide to planning your beds and borders. With the right mix planted together, you’ll have non-stop flowers from the last frost to the first heat wave and beyond.
Start preparing your garden beds now for spring planting. Add compost and other organic matter to enrich the soil.
Group these all-season plants thoughtfully to create harmonious, prolonged displays. Use taller mid to late spring bloomers towards the back or middle of beds, and mass earlier bulbs and perennials towards the front.
With a thoughtfully designed landscape that includes a succession of blooming times, your garden will transition seamlessly from season to season. You’ll enjoy fresh cut flowers on your table and vivid garden color all spring long.
Shop in Many Seasons
After long winter days, gardeners are eager to get to garden centers and start picking out new plants for the garden. Spring is a great time to buy and add plants to your garden. What if I told you we are missing something critical by shopping and choosing plants primarily in spring? Until someone pointed it out, I didn’t really think about the fact that in spring, garden centers are largely selling colorful plants that are good for spring. If you want to see summer blooming plants in garden centers, you should visit garden centers in summer. Really, anytime spring through fall is a good time to drop by your favorite garden centers to see what’s in color. It’s a great way to get ideas for plants to add for times of the year your garden might be lacking in color. Another idea is to visit public gardens throughout the year. Doing so will give you a feel for which plants are colorful at different times of the year in your climate.
Bulbs for Spring Color and Beyond
For many gardeners, early spring plants are beloved for bursting into flower just as soon as spring starts, announcing that spring has sprung. Early spring bulbs, like daffodils, are quite hardy and add color to the landscape early in the season. One drawback is their unsightly foliage as they start to go dormant. Using companion plants like late emerging perennials can hide the dying bulb foliage while adding a new wave of color in the summer. There are also summer blooming bulbs to consider.
Plants 4 All Seasons
0