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The trees and shrubs around us will soon come to life in a riot of scent and color. They’ll bathe us in the nostalgia of sweet memories and rejuvenate us with new promises to come. If you want to grow some of the most beautiful flowers of the spring, here are the trees and shrubs to plant now!
Forsythias are some of the first bloomers of the year. Their branches turn bright yellow with flowers before their leaves emerge. After their time in the spotlight, their dense green foliage makes them a good privacy shrub or just a healthy green bush throughout the summer.
Spireas are some of the stars of late spring and early summer. The smaller varieties reach about knee height and display clusters of fuschia flowers above golden leaves. Other common varieties grow into full-sized shrubs, draped with clusters of white flowers above green leaves in late spring or early summer.
This fruit-bearing shrub welcomes the spring with rich magenta blossoms. The older stems bear thorns, and the flowers have the satin texture and cupped appearance of small roses. Some varieties go on to bear a tart fruit that makes excellent preserves and jellies, while other hybrids have been bred to flower but not fruit.
Magnolias are one of the celebrated bloomers of the South. Their white or pink flowers open in early spring before the leaves. Depending on the variety, they may grow into a large shrub or small tree and display wide or thin flower petals. But no matter the type, all magnolias exude an irresistible fragrance that will color your memories of early spring.
This native tree to the eastern states displays some of the most dazzling colors of early spring. The branches are covered with rosy pink blooms for 2-3 weeks before the leaves open. Reaching a mature height of 20-30 feet, the redbud makes a perfect modest-sized tree for a small-to-medium-sized yard.
A cross between miniature and groundcover roses, drift roses are small rose shrubs that bloom profusely from mid-spring until the fall. You can find them in apricot, lemon, peach, coral, red, white, and more. Their manageable size makes them low-maintenance and easy to integrate into a perennial garden or flower border.
The azalea is another celebrity of spring. As it comes in so many varieties—from red to white, peach to indigo, and every shade of pink—you could color your whole garden with azaleas alone. Some “encore” varieties even bloom again in the fall. And when they’re not flowering, they stand as a medium-sized shrub with jade green leaves.
These native trees light up the woods in Northwest Arkansas with pink or white blossoms in early spring, and in the fall, they display incredible burgundy leaves. Well adapted to our climate, they’ll thrive in your yard, growing into a small tree with a low canopy, and attract birds with berries that mature in mid-summer.
What would be the spring without drifts of fragrance and budding colors all around us? We owe most of this beauty to trees and shrubs. Every year without fail, they greet us with fresh flowers and leaves, and we can easily grow these colorful companions right in our own yards. They’ll become lifelong treasures for us and perennial joys for our neighbors, too, not to mention food for the birds, bees, and butterflies.
Early spring, after the ground thaws, is one of the best times of the year for planting new shrubs and trees. If you’d like to grow any of these beauties in your yard, visit our garden centers in Northwest Arkansas!
