Spring is my favorite season with all the flowers. Absolutely the best. It starts off with a taste of winter, but with a change of the quality of the air. There’s more humidity. And the rain hits. It rains, and rains, and rains, until the garden is flooded, the ducks have an unnatural puddle to swim in, and my muck boots are soaked, even on the inside. Then spring hops into its next micro-season with a streak of warm, summerlike days, followed by the middle of winter again.
Through all these changes in our environment, God provides my new favorite flowers across multiple weeks. As soon as I think crocus are just absolutely amazing, the daffodils bloom. Then, as soon as a fresh vase of daffodils, hyacinths being to bloom. As soon as my heart falls in love with the sweet scent of hyacinths and their colors, tulips begin budding.
Although I don’t grow to sell any of these blooms currently, crocus, daffodil, hyacinth, and tulip fill my landscape with fresh blooms to enjoy continuously as one blooms, declines, and the next begins.
Crocus: Earliest Spring Flower
In 2023, my crocus first began to bloom on March 16, a few days before the technical beginning of spring. We had some warmer weather in March that sparked their growth, and then a few days of snow after they began to bloom.
Crocus can come in a variety of colors, but I have the classic purple with hues of a dark purple and shades of a light lavender color. In the center, there is shades of a yellowish-orange to contrast the purple. The leaves have a centered light green hue with a contrasting darker green on the outer edges of the leaves.
Crocus will shut their petals over cooler night temperatures. This is so neat to see them opening up during the day and them moving their petals back for the night.
Now although these cannot be seen from the roadside, I love for these to bloom. They are the first flower of mine to bloom outdoors and signal springtime is upon us.
What to Plant When Crocus is in Bloom?
Spring flowers grow and bloom based on the temperatures outside, as well as the soil temperatures. They can tell us when nature is ready for some of our seeds or plants.
When crocus are in bloom, this is sign to start planting radish and spinach seeds outdoors.
And what a relief this is too. With my crocus is blooming in March, I can start gardening outdoors on those warmer days, with the feel of late spring and summer. It brings me a reason to be out in the fresh air, with the sunshine, using small amounts of movements.
Do not plant radish and spinach seeds before crocus are in bloom, but you don’t have to rush your schedule to get radish and spinach seeds in while the crocus is in first bloom. Just use it as a guide for timing when to plant radish and spinach. If it is a week after crocus have started to bloom, you are fine.
For more about how to use flowers in bloom to determine what to plant, here is the link to an article with a list in Almanac.
https://www.almanac.com/phenology-garden-planting-natures-signs
Daffodils: Easiest Naturalizing Spring Flower
Daffodils consistently begin blooming the first week of April. For me with an average last frost around May 15, the first week of April is eight weeks before my average last frost. I use daffodils as a guide to know that it is time that I can start planting cool hardy flowers.
I love the variety of colors and shapes daffodils can come in. But, although they come in such a variety, I still love the traditional daffodil with the large outer petals and large trumpet-like center petals. with the deep yellow hues.
Other varieties combine different colors to create such beauty. I do enjoy ones with any sort of white in their petals, but my new obsession is daffodils with peach petals. I essentially just want all the varieties from the classic yellow to the unique peach daffodils.
My favorite thing about daffodils is how they naturalize, even in a hay field. Drive along the country side and seeing daffodils that have come up in small patches in a field. Daffodils also would designate fence lines on farms and homestead.
My goal with growing daffodils is to great such a variety of blossoms for myself on my homestead to begin with. In years to come, of all these bedding flowers, I’d like to grow daffodils as cut flowers for my flower farm one day. But for now, I want to grow these blooms for my landscape as well as some small en masse bouquets for the home.
What to Plant When Daffodils are in Bloom?
Besides beginning to plant my cool flowers for the season, plant beets and carrots. Usually at this time forsythia begins to bloom as well, so it is good to being planting peas and lettuce from seed, as well as onion sets. If roses have begun to develop their leaves, it is okay to prune them for the current season.
I have had peas germinate planted before the first week of April, before the daffodils or forsythia have been in bloom. But, it is only about two weeks before this that they are planted. What the daffodils and forsythia designate is that it is the best conditions for planting peas.
I’ve planted peas before way too early. Oops. It was a nice day in March. I couldn’t help myself. I was excited. This can happen with gardening. The goal is to garden, with the intend of things growing, but often it is too early and cold days are still to come. This is where waiting until flowers bloom comes in.
Hyacinth: The Sweetest Scent Spring Flower
Shortly after the daffodils have started to bloom and as they continue to bloom, depending on the variety, hyacinths begin to bud and open in blooms.
Hyacinths have the best smell out of any flowers. Well, maybe peonies out beat them in smell. But out of these four spring flowers, hyacinths are the winners.
When planting as bedding flowers, they make walking through the yard or past the front porch as something divine. It makes it smell like spring. I remember in college, our campus had tons of hyacinths in bloom. Walking to classes in spring semester during essay writing season on a sunny day, ooh, it made life better. Just that little moment.
Cutting these hyacinths can bring in their sweet scent indoors. Flower farmers do grow these to sell, but their goal is to get the longest stem length from them. When I cut them to bring them indoors, I’m not looking for the longest stem length just for my home. I’m looking for the beauty of the flower and its scent, so I just cut at the bottom of the flower with a pair of floral shears.
Hyacinths come in an array of colors, mostly shades of pinks, purples, and whites. But . . . I found this mix of hyacinths from Lowe’s in the fall of 2022 that had even more colors. Purple, pink, white, AND peach, coral, and a pale yellow. My favorite color combination in flowers.
Tulips: The Ever-growing Spring Flower
Tulips are beautiful. The range of colors; the range of petals and their shapes; the range of ones in multiple colors. BEAUTIFUL!
Their bloom time ranges from right after the hyacinths to into May, depending on variety.
In my garden, I have single-bloom and double-blooms. I have white, along with all sorts of singular colors, as well as multiple colored blooms. I bought some from Lowe’s, while a good number of the rest came from Baker Creek. Looking into the future for my tulip wish list, I’d love to buy some of the ones from Johnny’s Select Seed.
There’s some downfalls with tulips. For one, deer and animals like to eat them. My grandmother always had this problem at her house in the flower bed right next to her front porch. The animals tend to leave my tulips alone that are in my front flower beds or in the raised beds in the back by the deck. The tulips in the main garden. They’ve been blooming and nothing has eaten off the blooms, but an animal was eating at them in late winter.
Tulips are native to Asia in their mountains that have a wet spring, but a dry summer. So, tulips don’t naturalize as well as other blooms in my area of the Appalachian Mountains. That’s a down fall. So is the fact that in following years, the tulips may not be as tall and large as previous years, since some of the new tulip bulbs have begun to grow.
Out of all the downfalls with tulips, I’m still in love with their beauty and would love more varieties to try. Tulips being the last spring bulb flower to blossom, it reassures us that spring is here and essentially here to stay. We have some random snow falls- just a light layer, but the days are getting longer and warmer bringing along more beauty in the weeks to come.
Why Plant Crocus, Daffodil, Hyacinth, or Tulips?
Besides their beauty, it is how these flowers energize us. First off, in the fall, it gives us something to plant, keeping the planting and growing season of gardening going instead of being a one-time thing in May.
But, when spring comes along, with each set of new blossoms, it reminds us that we have survived winter. Life is here in full swing. It may have been dormant for months, but with the first sign of crocus, it gives a sense of here’s beauty, here’s God’s Creation, here’s life. It continues with the daffodils and hyacinths blooming in rapid fire in April. And then tulips finally give us that security of knowing warmer weather is coming to bless us with a bountiful harvest of flowers, food, and freshness.
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