Plant 90 Days of Spring Blooms

Life is full of ebbs and flows; gardens often mimic the ebbs and flows of human life. A complete garden has a flow to it. Some of the flow comes from different textures and heights in the garden. A big impact on the flow in your garden comes from a continuous sequence of color from an assortment of flowers. When the tides of spring arrive with colors bursting forth make sure the flow is strong in your garden with continuous blooms in spring.

When spring arrives, you realize how much you missed the colorful leaves, flowers, and scenery that were sleeping in winter. Seeing the first blooms of snowdrops, crocus, and glory of the snow is refreshing. But if all you have is early spring blooms in your garden you are missing out on days, weeks, and months of blooms. Conversely, if you do not have early blooming flowers you may be missing out on several weeks’ worth of blooms in spring. Whether you are just starting your garden out or trying to ensure you have a long blooming spring garden these suggestions below will help ensure you have continuous blooms for 90 days or more.

90 Days of Spring Blooms

Early Spring Blooming Flowers

Start your 90 days of spring blooms with the early birds. The first flowers to bloom often have snow in their name. Snowdrops and Glory of the Snow bloom when the snow is melting, and often bloom through the snow. Glory of the Snow blooms in shades of true blue as well as pink and white. Planting a mixed package of glory of the snow is a great way to start the flow of blooms.

Early Blooming Crocus

Not all of the flowers that bloom in early spring will bloom during the exact same week, or even length of time. Therefore, once the earliest of the early spring blooms have finished, plant crocus to keep up with the continuation of blooms. Crocus bloom in shades of yellow, white, and purple. If your garden has a color scheme you can plant a specific variety of crocus. However, if you want a variety of colors planting a crocus mix throughout your garden will ensure you see blooms of all the types of crocus.

Early Blooming Tulips and Daffodils

Crocus, snowdrops, and glory of the snow are all groundcover bulbs that are short in stature. Add some height to your early spring garden with early blooming tulips. Single Early Tulips, Kaufamannian Tulips, and Gregii Tulips. These varieties will be taller than the groundcover blooms in your garden, but not as tall as the tulips that bloom later.

Early blooming daffodils like Tete a Tete Daffodils and Rapture Miniature Daffodils are compact varieties that will add to the early spring show.

Planting all or a combination of the bulbs suggested above will produce blooms for 14 to 21 days at the beginning of the spring season.

Mid Spring Blooming Flowers

The air is starting to warm. Days are getting longer. We may be out of the woods for snow now that mid-spring has arrived. Mid-spring provides the most opportunity for a variety of colors and blooms. It is the apex of spring when it comes to flower bulbs blooming.

Fragrant Mid-Spring Blooming Hyacinths

Fragrant hyacinths begin blooming in mid-spring and can overlap with the end of the early spring blooms. These fragrant and colorful bulbs are a great transition flower from early to mid-spring blooms. They help ensure you aren’t missing any days of blooms. Hyacinths grow 8-12″ tall, they fit in nicely in the front sections of your garden bed.

Mid-Spring Blooming Daffodils

During these 90 days of blooms, you will certainly need blooms from classic daffodils. Planting a mix of daffodils is the most simple way to have a variety of bloom types and colors. If you have a traditional garden theme planting solid yellow Dutch Master Daffodils will fit well in your garden. Daffodils tend to sprout and bloom a few days before mid-spring blooming tulips. However, they will often be blooming during the same time frame in mid-spring. In my garden the Mt. Hood Daffodils appear before my tulips; the blooms have lasted as long as 30 days on the Mt. Hood Daffodils.

Mid-Spring Blooming Tulips

Tulips steal the show with their blooms mid-season. They come in bright colors, dark colors, light colors, and some tulips are even two-toned. In addition to different colors, they bloom in a variety of heights. Therefore, planting an assortment of tulips for mid-spring blooms will create a diverse scene of these spring superstars.

With so many tulip varieties to choose from it may be overwhelming to determine which of the mid-spring blooming varieties you want to plant. The good thing is there are many choices for tulip mixes that bloom in mid-spring. For the most color in your mixed tulips plant a mix of triumph tulips; they bloom in the largest spectrum of colors. Darwin Hybrid Tulips bloom in mid-spring and mix of Darwin Hybrid tulips will provide reliable perennial tulips in mostly warm colors. For gardeners with a color scheme in their spring garden, there are even tulip mixes that may match their color scheme.

Mid-Spring Blooming Grape Hyacinths

Grape Hyacinths are a classic spring bulb that stays low to the ground. They can be planted with classic daffodils and tulips for a traditional garden appearance. Large groups of grape hyacinths can be planted to form a sea of blue. Grape hyacinths also bloom in pink, white, and purple for a larger variety of colors.

Planting all or a combination of the bulbs above will provide your garden with mid-spring blooms for 20-30 days.

Late Spring Blooming Flowers

Late spring celebrates with a finale of blooms. The last flowers to bloom in spring range in color, height, and texture. They produce flowers over 3-5 weeks before summer begins. With many options to choose from you can ensure the finale of spring blooms will be spectacular.

Late Spring Blooming Tulips

Many of the tulips that bloom in late spring will overlap with the final days of the blooms from mid-spring blooming tulips. Late spring blooming tulips are some of the first flowers to bloom at the beginning of the late spring bloom parade. Unique tulips like Parrot Tulips, Fringed Tulips, and Lily Flowering Tulips all bloom in last in the tulip bloom season. For a more traditional look, single late tulips can be planted for late spring color. They have tall stems and large showy flowers.

Late Spring Blooming Iris

Blooming near the late tulips are tall Dutch Iris. They grow 2-3′ tall with blooms in shades of purple, blue, yellow, and white. Dutch Irises have a strong vertical habit and are best planted in the middle to back of the garden.

Even later in spring, almost at the end of spring bearded iris produce a rainbow of blooms. Bearded Iris bloom in red, blue, dark purple almost black, orange, yellow, white, pink, and every color in between. Their blooms are showy and are some of the last to show before summer begins. You will want to plant bearded iris to ensure the end of the spring bloom season is filled with color!

Late Spring Blooming Allium

Allium bloom in a variety of shapes and sizes. Their flowers tend to remain intact even when dry for weeks after the initial blooms fade. The most popular allium varieties are the ones that have large ball-shaped blooms. Allium giganteum, Purple Sensation Allium, and White Giant Allium bloom with large spherical blooms up to 6″ in diameter. Large allium, also have a strong vertical habit and should be planted in the middle to back of your garden.

If you don’t have the space for large allium, there are varieties like Drumstick Allium and Ostrowskianum Allium that remain smaller. These varieties can be fit in the front to the middle of your garden. For a carefree look try planting a mix of allium like the Bubble Blend Allium Mix, it’s not too tall or too short and has a place in any sunny garden.

Late Spring Blooming Peonies

Peonies start their blooms at the end of spring. Although some varieties will begin blooming a couple of weeks before others. Peonies have a bushy appearance and depending on the amount of space you may only need 1 in your garden. If you have more space or love peonies planting a row or grouping of 3-5 peonies will fill your late spring garden with fragrance.

Planting both herbaceous and Itoh hybrid peonies if space allows will help ensure you have blooms for longer in late spring. If you love peonies and can’t decide which varieties to plant, try planting a mix of herbaceous peonies. Mixed peonies are fragrant and colorful!

Planting all or a mix of the suggested bulbs above will provide blooms for 30-40 days in late spring.

Early Summer Blooming Flowers

Before summer really gets started with the perennials, and tropical bulb blooming it is nice to ease into the season. Easy to grow Asiatic Lilies are colorful and bloom at the end of spring to the beginning of summer. Unique Foxtail Lilies also bloom in early summer. They have tall-spikey blooms that have a glowing appearance and will really make a statement in early summer.

By adding either Asiatic lilies or foxtail lilies you will certainly have 90 days of blooms, and even more than that!

Spring Blooms For Days, Weeks and Months

Having flowers in bloom for most of the growing season is critical to garden planning. Fortunately, the amount of flowers that bloom in spring, makes this planning easy. It also makes having blooms for weeks, and months in March, April, May, and June easily attainable. If you aren’t quite sure when exactly some of these flowers will bloom you may want to check out What’s Up with my Flowers: When Will they Bloom?

When planting this fall you may not be able to plant all the bulbs mentioned above this year. However, gardening is a lifelong process and you can continue to add new bulbs and flowers each season to get closer to attaining 90 days of spring blooms.