Green is great, but spring can explode with a lot more than just the new budding leaves. Come April and May, the Eagleson home is alive with color. Bulbs, wildflowers, ornamental onions, trees and hostas provide their own unique foliage to create a diverse spring garden. Variety is the key to bringing a true feeling of rebirth to your landscaping.
The following are some of our favorite spring bloomers:
Spring Bulbs: Many landscape designs will achieve a spring extravaganza with bulbs. We scattered a plethora in our garden and beds: tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, crocus and fritillaria. We also didn’t just stick with one option; we chose different colors and sizes within the same species.
Bulb flowers are one of the largest and most cheerful aspects of spring. Nearly every landscape can use bulbs of some type. It is advantageous to find bulbs that flower at different times during the season so you keep color in your yard into summer. You can find early, mid, and late bulbs, but also check your local flowering times.
Onions, Wildflowers and More: Bulbs are not your only source of flowering goodness. Blooming, ornamental onions and wildflowers can add interest with their atypical shapes. We planted bloodroot, trillium, Dutchman’s breeches, Lenten roses (named such for their Lent season bloom), bleeding heart, a wildflower called Green Dragon and Jack-in-the-pulpits. However, not every landscape can support the often shade-loving wildflowers, and not every landscape design will be well-suited to include them.
Don’t forget your May flowers and hostas. We love our daylilies and multiple columbine species, which come up after our bulbs. There are many kinds of flowering hostas you can choose from, and hostas will continue into summer and early fall, providing you with lovely lower foliage and color.
Trees: When considering trees, you don’t want to pick the ones that just bloom the prettiest in spring. The trees we planted in our yard provide beauty and interest throughout the seasons, though we certainly didn’t leave spring out of our considerations! We chose many varieties of dogwoods, red buds, and Japanese maples. Our Cornelian Cherry dogwood has true yellow flowers, interesting bark, and red olive-sized berries that the birds just love, which adds interest in summer. Japanese maples also have great summer foliage different from their spring colors.
Creating a garden that pops in spring and keeps its beauty through the rest of the seasons takes planning. We’d be happy to help! Send us an email or give us a call at (317) 997-4803.
