20 Hard-to-Find Spring Flowers & Plants That Look Amazing All Season
It’s finally beginning to look like spring! If you’re eager to find some unique, hard-to-find varietals to satisfy your spring fever, look here first.
“Obsessed with quality, and focused on giving every plant what it needs to thrive – “ this is how Monrovia® has grown the best plants and trees for nearly a hundred years. Custom-mixing soils for the healthiest roots, they treat their plants like treasured babies, nourishing, pruning and nurturing them as they grow. Monrovia® plants that end up in your local garden center are of the very highest quality in terms of health, vitality and beauty.
Have your order shipped to your local garden center at no charge. Their massive selection, from one-gallon colorful perennials to 15-gallon trees, makes ordering from Monrovia® your best choice for thriving, living plants. Look for Monrovia’s special green containers at your local garden center.
Here are our best suggestions for plants you will love to grow.
BLOOMING IN EARLY SPRING
We’re all more than ready for spring this year! Consider creating a plant sanctuary that will bring you and your family pleasure all year, for years to come. Check out Monrovia's selection of unique and often hard-to-find plants and try planting them in groups, in pairs or as singular specimen plants. Here are some great ideas for plants that blend well together and can be shipped to your garden center or local Lowes store.
Helleborus is showing up everywhere this year, but this one is unique. Most hellebore plants hide their beautiful blossoms by turning them downward. This stunning varietal is not shy. Its blossoms tilt outward and upward with deep purple on the edges of its perfect petals. This beauty blooms in early spring and grows 1 to 2 feet tall.
Include this vibrant azalea in your spring planting plans for a bright splash of color. Its watermelon tinted flowers rebloom in summer and it adapts to a cold climate better than some. An evergreen, and technically a rhododendron, this azalea is perfect for borders, hedging or a container.
Have a look at this delicate perennial that lives up to its name. It’s frilly and as the name implies, its scent is heavenly. Blooming in spring and again in summer, this Dianthus will look great in your early spring garden, borders or containers.
The dogwood blossom is always delicate and elegant, and these flowers are a lovely shade of the palest pink. But this dogwood’s leaves are the sensational element here. Variegated with green, white and touches of pink, this tree is a stellar rainbow of pastels, but turns a bright reddish purple in fall.
BLOOMING IN MID SPRING
When early bloomers are finished, these gorgeous specimens will surprise you with their mid-spring blooms that bridge the gap between early spring and summer.
Reaching 3 feet tall and 6 feet wide, this luxurious shrub sports smooth and shiny dark green leaves with spring-blooming fragrant white flower spikes, followed by small black ornamental fruit. Birds love the thick foliage in the winter, and it makes an excellent hedge or privacy screen plant.
Its gorgeous pinky peach-colored blooms are only part of the story of this amazing rose bush. It reaches 3 feet in height and 4 feet in width and is an easy-care touch of pure beauty that blooms from spring through fall.
Imagine a lilac this beautiful in your yard or garden with its heavy, fragrant blooms that might bring back memories of your grandparents’ garden. But this breed is new from the United States National Arboretum and grows well even in hot and humid climates. It’s deciduous and disease-tolerant, resistant to mildew and smells like pure joy. Read Monrovia’s tips on growing lilacs!
These brilliant scarlet flowers will grow in mounds in your garden or can be planted as a major groundcover. The flowers have yellow centers, the dark glossy leaves edged in burgundy. This is a showstopper that blooms in spring through the fall months. It can be planted in full sun as a standalone, or plant lots of them for groundcover.
BLOOMING IN LATE SPRING & EARLY SUMMER
The warm lazy days of summer bring some of the most beautiful and rich plants and blooms of the year. These are worth the wait.
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Can we use the word “creamy” to describe a flower that is so sweet its rich fragrance is beyond description? Monrovia® experts have outdone themselves with this evergreen that produces large rich double blooms. Grafted to rootstock that’s nematode resistant, it tolerates poor soil and easily grabs up soil nutrients.
The fascinating flower of this plant is breathtaking, not to mention the deep red fall berries that grow on its stems, beautiful in flower arrangements. It can grow 3 feet in both directions and is perfect for borders and containers.
Compact and pretty, this Monrovia®-exclusive shrub with its glossy-green foliage sports a plethora of beautiful plum-colored blossoms, summer to fall. Plant a few of them together, fill a border or accent a small landscape scene. It also thrives in a container since it maxes out around 5 feet tall and 4 feet wide.
Inhale the fragrance and sprinkle it in your gourmet cooking. Sweetly aromatic evergreen mounds of lavender shoot up spikes of beautiful purple-blue blooms that are so sweet you can eat them. Disease resistant and tolerant of humid conditions, it blooms in the summer and again in fall and unlike some of its cousins, it does not die back in winter.
Each stem of this hybrid hydrangea produces a perfect mound of double-petaled white flowers so beautiful they are a first choice for formal weddings. The blossoms first unfold around the edges and then continue to bloom until they cover the mound, forming a fluffy white ball. The plant will make a statement in your yard or garden, whether you’re planning a wedding or you just appreciate this pristine kind of beauty.
There is just nothing quite like the scent of jasmine – sweet but also sensual, and a sincere delight in any garden. Monrovia’s Madison Star varietal withstands cooler weather better than most. You can trellis it or even allow it to serve as a fragrant groundcover. It blooms in late spring and often reblooms in summer. This pretty vining plant is not terribly particular about sun or shade and can climb up to 12 feet tall when supported.
Check out this amazing vine that shows off clusters of trumpet-shaped flowers in deep red and orange tones of the sunset. It blossoms through the summer and, once it takes hold, it’s totally easy-care. It will climb up and cover your lattice, fence or arbor. Give your yard or garden a gift of this dramatic plant that asks almost nothing of you.
ALL SEASON BEAUTY
If you want to enjoy this year’s purchases all year long, have a look at these special selections from Monrovia®, one of the world’s premiere growers.
You really need to see this one to believe how beautiful it is. A tropical plant with a variegated blend of pink, cream and several shades of green and exotic blade leaves, it can be grown in a container or in your garden bed.
Monrovia® has outdone itself with this one. An Acer that almost glows bright red with new growth then mellows to a deep burgundy, this gorgeous tree grows up to 8 feet tall and can spread 8 to 10 feet wide. A treasure in your landscape, it enjoys full or partial sun, or full or partial shade. It’s just not that fussy.
They’re truly other-worldly – velvety silver-white leaves shaped like angel wings make a striking contrast for all your other plants. With their large leaves and pale beauty these plants show off in borders and rock gardens, as well as in succulent gardens and containers.
If you’ve ever seen a podocarpus tree, we’ll bet you’ve never seen one this color! This conifer’s beautiful blue-green-gray foliage is a showstopper, especially as its new growth develops from lime green to its final hue. Great as a screening tree or standing alone, this fluffy evergreen thrives in full or partial sun.
Grow this beautiful shrub in your yard or border. With its splashy variegated glossy green leaves, it’s a great idea to position a few of them side by side to create a little privacy, or trim one up to have some topiary fun. Silver King Euonymus shrubs are extremely adaptable to poor soils and heat.
Monrovia® provides loads of helpful information about caring for their plants, bushes and trees. You’ll recognize their plants in the distinctive green Monrovia® containers at your local Lowes store and at garden centers and nurseries nationwide. Plus, join Monrovia’s loyalty program today to earn 25 points just for signing up, and a point for every dollar spent!
Along with Monrovia®, all of us at Gardening Know How extend our wishes to you for a most wonderful spring and, as always, happy gardening.
Monrovia® ships in the US and Canada, but not all plants can be shipped to all locations. Check www.monrovia.com for availability in your area.
The above article was sponsored by Monrovia®. The information contained in this article may contain ads or advertorial opinions. All images utilized in this article were provided by Monrovia®.
Caroline Bloomfield is Manager of Marketing Communications at Gardening Know How since 2019. A northwest native, she has resided and gardened in multiple zones in the U.S. and is currently at home in Eugene, Oregon. Writing and editing for various publications since 1998, her BA in American Studies from Southern Maine University includes an emphasis in English. She was raised in California by avid gardeners and continues to enjoy the natural world with an appreciation for the concepts of sustainability and organic care for the planet.
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