What is spring without bountiful blossoms? In the spring, no matter where you live you want the earth to wake up with bees and birds visiting thriving trees, shrubs, and flowers around your garden space. This beautiful show can continue on through the spring, summer, and fall months. How can you design your garden for spring blossoms?

Plant for Succession 

In nature, spring is a busy season of blossoms, but the blossoms don’t happen all at once. They come out in turn, giving the bees and the birds something to pollinate every week of the spring. You should do the same in your garden, both to delight the pollinators and to delight your eyes as well.

Depending on what kind of winter you have in your area, you may have a sudden awakening or a long, slow slide into spring. Get to know the plants that wake up first and blossom early, such as hellebores, winter flowering viburnum, crocuses, and snowdrops. Then learn more about the flowers that bloom long into the fall, such as zinnias and marigolds. Some plants have consistent flowers for many weeks, while others are here one day and gone the next. When you plant your garden, break down the spring into early, mid, and late spring, and make sure that each section of your garden has a few flowers in each part of the springtime.

Start With Perennials 

If you’re living in a home for a long time and have the ability to establish a perennial garden, this will help both your eyes and your budget feel content with your spring flower garden. Perennials are more costly to install at first, but they can form a longstanding foundation for your flower garden. Add perennial trees, shrubs, flowers, and border plants. Some popular perennials that bloom in the spring include:

• Trees: Apple, cherry, plum, magnolia
• Shrubs: Azalea, rhododendron, lilac, forsythia, camellia
• Flowers: Hellebore, bleeding heart, viola, peony, perennial geraniums, black-eyed Susan
• Bulbs: iris, daffodils, snowdrops, crocuses, tulips

Use Annuals for the Final Touches 

Unless you grow them from seed, you need to purchase annual flowers every year. This can get expensive, which is why it’s best to use annuals intentionally and to their greatest impact.

• Use annuals to patch up the holes. If a plant is late or is not thriving, add a similar color and shape of annual in its place.
• Choose annuals that will self-sow, turning your garden into a wildflower meadow. Clary sage is one of these wildflowers.
• Create distinct borders in your garden with annual plants such as lobelia, allysum, and pansies.

Annuals can be multipurpose, and you can use them in many different areas around your home. For example, you can:

• Choose annuals that add a distinct and unique type of blossom. Castor beans have unique flowers and give a tropical look to your garden.
• Add annuals such as cosmos that double as cutting flowers so that you can bring them into your home as well.
• Use annuals as accents. Place them in window boxes and planters, in porches and around your patio.
• Welcome people to your home with annuals. Place them in a seasonally-changing display next to your front door.

Manage the Mess With Gutter Covers 

Blossoms are beautiful, but once you have all of these blossoms, you need to know what to do when they land on your home. While you might think about fall leaves when you think about gutter cleanup, the fact is that spring blossoms can quietly clog your gutters. Don’t be concerned, though: there is a simple solution that will allow you to have your blossoms and your clean gutters too. Add gutter covers to your gutters, and the blossoms will simply slide off onto the ground while water flows easily into your gutters.

At Harry Helmet, we are here to support the beauty and functionality of your home and garden. Whether you’re looking for an awning, gutter covers, or a new roof, we want to help you make your home look its best. Contact us today and learn more about our gutter guards.

Written by Del Thebaud