Colorful blooms are a welcome sight each spring, and in the perennial garden, there are so many fascinating varieties eager to help us usher in the new season. Here, we share some of our favorite spring-blooming perennials that you’ll love to see pop up in the landscape every spring.
Bleeding Heart // Lamprocamphos spectabilis
With sweet rows of pink, red, or white heart-shaped blooms that dangle from slender, arching stems, bleeding heart lends a fairy-like quality to a shady woodland garden. A true cool-season plant, this whimsical beauty – with its soft, deeply cut foliage and dainty flowers – is one of the first perennials to celebrate spring’s arrival.
Lenten Rose // Helleborus x hybridus
Although it resembles a rose, Lenten rose is actually a member of the buttercup family. It’s also one of the most striking blooms to be found in a shaded, early-spring perennial garden. The long-lasting, 3-4” flowers feature interesting freckles, veins, and other details. The foliage is just as interesting, with leathery, deeply divided leaves that look almost tropical.
Columbine // Aquilegia spp.
It’s easy to spend whole minutes contemplating a columbine’s intricate bloom. The petals and sepals create a cup-like structure that might remind you of an airy daffodil. But the explosion of stamens out the front and the long, characteristic spurs out the back give a columbine bloom its own, distinctive personality. Columbine does best in a partially shaded location with fertile, well-draining soil, and in our collection, you’ll find several different colors including bicolor and double varieties too.
Bergenia // Bergenia cordifolia
All by itself, Bergenia’s rosettes of low-growing, leathery foliage create a lovely groundcover along borders and edges of woodland spring gardens. But the show really begins when stout stems holding dozens of deep-pink, cup-like blooms rise up above the foliage in April. Bergenia tolerates a wide variety of soil types from loamy to clay too – just make sure it stays out of the direct sun.
Peony // Paeonia lactifolia
Peony is a garden classic. Its huge, fragrant blooms have long been a spring-time favorite for generations – and because the plants themselves are so long-lived, the rhizomes they grow from are often divided and passed down through families. Bursting with dozens of petals, each bloom resembles an enormous English rose. You’ll find them in a wide range of shades of pink, red, and white. Itoh peony – a hybrid between garden peony and the tree peony, P. suffruticosa – offers shades of yellow and apricot too. And unlike many early-spring perennials, peony relishes as much warm sunshine as it can get. Ants do love crawling all over the unopened buds, but don’t worry. These beneficial insects are just enjoying the sweet nectar the buds secrete – and in return, they defend the buds from other damaging insects.
Spring Arrives in the Perennial Garden
Colorful flowers are coming up everywhere these days, and the perennial garden is no exception. Find a new favorite to add to your landscape among these beautiful early-spring bloomers – and if you’re not sure which one to pick, just ask. We’re always here to help!
