6 Tips for a Better Spring Flower Garden (2024)

Gardening

Flowers

Are you one of those gardeners that checks the ground every day for signs of life beginning the first mild day in February? Spring fever seems to affect gardeners more severely than others, and the remedy is to get more and earlier flowers in your landscape. Follow these tips to get more blooms out of your garden than ever before.

• 01 of 06

  Choose Early Bloomers

  

  The colder the climate, the more anxious gardeners are for signs of spring in the landscape. Planting very early blooming bulbs can make you feel like you’ve cheated winter, because these hardy bulbs may begin to bloom as the holiday decorations are just coming down. These petite flowers don’t make much of a statement when planted in groups of a dozen or less, but the affordable price of the so-called minor bulbs makes planting of a hundred or more manageable.

  • The common snowdrop, Galanthus nivalis, sports dainty white bell-shaped flowers on six-inch stalks. They bloom as early as Januaryand naturalize easily in an undisturbed spot.
  • If white flowers are lost in your snowy garden, consider the winter aconite, Eranthis hyemalis, which produce bright yellow flowers atop a ruffled collar of green foliage.
  • Finally, glory-of-the-snow, Chionodoxa luciliae, produces masses of blue, pink, or white star-shaped flowers to satisfy your pastel flower cravings.

• 02 of 06

  Pair Bulbs and Hardy Annuals

  

  If you ran out of steam last fall after planting the first bag of fiftytulips, your spring flower show may not be as lush as you hoped it would be. Interplant large bulbs, like tulips, daffodils, and hyacinths, with cold-hardy annuals. The results will resemble a gardening magazine spread or a public garden display you have admired.

  Careful digging allows you to plant a nursery six-pack of hardy annual transplants without disturbing the bulbs. Plant the annuals as soon as they are offered in your nursery when you should already see green foliage tips emerging from the bulbs. Try these four planting partners this spring:

  • Tulips and primroses
  • Hyacinths and pansies
  • Daffodils and scented stock
  • Dutch iris and sweet alyssum

• 03 of 06

  Include Flowering Shrubs

  

  When creating a flowering landscape, follow the garden design principle of starting with trees, then shrubs, then plants. Shrubs not only give the garden texture and dimension, but many also offer reliable spring flowers for sunny or shady situations. Azaleas herald the arrival of spring in many southern gardens, and forsythia does the same in temperate climates.

  If the thought of a plain green shrub amidst your flowers doesn’t thrill you, choose a shrub that displays bright berries after its flowers fade, like viburnum. You can also look for newer cultivars of old favorites that have variegated foliage, like daphne ‘Marginata’ in warm climates or elderberry'Madonna’ in cold climates.

• 04 of 06

  Grow Spring Containers

  

  Including flowering containers in your spring garden, brings earlier blooms in your garden. Small hanging baskets can be brought into a shed or garage when temperatures plummet at night and large containers can be moved to a sheltered area if you use casters.

  Some of the most beloved container plants—snapdragons, petunias, and annual lobelia—thrive in cool spring temperatures. These cool-season annuals are at their flowering peak when daytime temperatures are in the 70s. Other container flowers, like viola and nasturtium, can tolerate early spring frosts.

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• 05 of 06

  Plant a Crocus Lawn

  

  Planting bulbs under a lawn doesn’t take any special skill. Just allow them to naturalize by delaying mowing until the bulb foliage matures. Choose the earliest blooming bulbs, unless you don’t mind letting your grass grow as long as strappy bulb foliage.

  Crocus bulbs are the most commonly grown flowers in a lawn, but you can also try snowdrops or iris reticulata. Slice the sod with a sharp spade and plant groups of bulbs at least three inches below the soil surface.

• 06 of 06

  Plant Bare Root Perennials

  

  If flower gardening is a visual hobby, no one gets excited about the sight of a bag of gnarled roots at the garden center. However, there are benefits to buying and planting bare root flowers at the beginning of the gardening season.

  Imagine digging up your favorite day lilyon March first. What would it look like? It would look like one of the root balls sold in plastic bags with a tentative stem beginning to emerge. In this semi-dormant form, plants are less likely to incur damage from late spring frosts than plants with fully developed foliage. In fact, by the middle of summer, bare root perennials may be indistinguishable from potted plants. As a bonus, bare root perennials are much cheaper than potted plants.