Unleash spring color in your Texas garden with flowering shrubs! Spring-blooming shrubs add layers of visual interest with unique foliage and vibrant colors that will enhance the beauty of your landscape. Their stunning flowers are rich in nectar to support our friendly pollinators and they provide a safe habitat for wildlife.
Spring flowering shrubs are relatively low maintenance, requiring minimal care once established, and they provide long-lasting benefits to you and your home. Revive your garden and enhance your curb appeal with the effortless elegance of spring shrubs.
Designing a Spring Garden with Flowering Shrubs
Planting early blooming spring shrubs is a fantastic way to bring life to your Texas garden. They help welcome the season with hope for spring blooms. Gardeners love spring flowering shrubs because the flowers arrive early in the season, creating the vibrant bloom power that we crave after the long days of winter. Check out these top shrub picks from our experts for must-have floral flair this spring!
FLOWERING QUINCE
For unique spring blooms, try Flowering Quince! A member of the rose family, Flowering Quince is one of the oldest landscape plants to date, as they have been cultivated for thousands of years in Asia. This multi-stemmed deciduous shrub is prized for its dynamic growth and adaptability. It can thrive in a wide range of climates with the proper sun exposure and soil conditions.
There are three important rules to follow when it comes to caring for Flowering Quince:
- Plant in full sun for vibrant blooms.
- Use Calloway’s Premium Organic Pine Bark Mulch as it prefers slightly acidic soil
- Water regularly at the root base, about 1 inch per week.
With these simple steps, you can enjoy your blooming beauty for a long time. In fact, with proper care, they can be expected to live for 40 years or more!
If you are looking for effortless spring blooms, try the Double Take® Peach Quince from Proven Winners®! The Double Take® collection is unbeatable. Unlike older varieties, these plants are thornless, making them ideal for cutting and creating floral arrangements. They add large peach blooms to your Texas landscape and are drought-tolerant.
AZALEAS
Create an early spring show of blooms and great texture with Azaleas! A popular flowering shrub in the south, Azaleas are extremely versatile showstoppers, available in a variety of colors and styles.
They perform best in 4-6 hours of sunlight or filtered shade throughout the day, and they prefer rich, highly acidic, and well-draining soil to avoid yellowing of the leaves. Because of their acidic soil love, Azaleas will also benefit from an Organic Pine Bark Mulch top dressing.
As your plants become established, water twice a week by soaking the soil at the base of the plant with 2 inches of water. Watering three times a week is preferred in extreme heat and drought. After the first year, Azaleas are quite drought-tolerant and may require less frequent waterings.
Grow a stunning display of vibrant colors with the Encore® Azalea collection! Try Autumn Embers™ for its striking hues and bold blooms. It is a dwarf variety, ideal for smaller gardens. This captivating, compact evergreen shrub is bathed in clusters of beautiful reddish-orange blooms that will emerge all season.
For soft pink color, Encore® Azalea Autumn Chiffon™ is a unique and beautiful variety to plant now in your Texas garden. The clusters of blooms have unique dark pink blotched centers through the spring with additional, lighter flushes in summer and fall.
SPIREA
Spirea is one of the most commonly used landscape plants as it can thrive in just about any garden. This spring-blooming shrub is hardy in zones 4-8 and adaptable to a variety of conditions. It can tolerate poor soil, heat, cold, humidity, and urban pollution. Spirea is a fast-growing deciduous shrub, smothered in double white flowers along the wiry branches throughout the spring.
Ready to grow? Try the Double Bridal Wreath Spirea! This medium-sized spring flowering shrub has an upright arching habit with cascading double-white blooms. The unique foliage of oval green leaves transitions to attractive orange and purple hues in the fall, providing your garden with year-round color. It performs best in full sun with well-draining soil. Double Bridal Wreath Spirea can handle occasional drought and should be planted in rows, at least 3 feet apart to allow room for growth.
FORSYTHIA
Add the striking color of early spring blooms to your Texas garden with Forsythia! The easy elegance of its dynamic, arching form and golden yellow blooms will provide a cheerful backdrop to your landscape. Forsythia is a deciduous shrub, derived from the olive family. Low-maintenance and fast-growing, this plant is famous for its early spring color as the long branches quickly fill with bright yellow blooms.
Magical® Gold Forsythia from Monrovia® will easily become an excellent focal point in your landscape design with their early spring flowers.
This smaller variety is ideal for limited gardening space, and it is easy to grow. Plant in full sun for the best flowers and water deeply and regularly during the first growing season to establish a strong root system. Forsythia is deer-resistant, tolerant of coastal climates and conditions, and a pollinator magnet. Bees and Butterflies love Forsythia!
CAMELLIA
Fill in the partial-shade areas of your Texas garden with delightful Camellias! They have long-blooming periods with vibrant spring flowers that will dazzle among the brilliant green foliage. The key to growing Camellias with success is to plant them right in the soil. They require well-draining acidic soil. Place in an area with light shade or dappled sunlight, avoiding direct sun exposure. Water regularly and deeply to encourage the root system to spread downward.
Camellia varieties differ in blooming times allowing you to enjoy them at different times of the year so check your plant tag for this detail. Our Texas Certified Nursery Professionals can help with your selections. Yuletide Camellias or Kanjiro Camellias produce vibrant fall blooms while Camellia japonica varieties bloom in the spring. Spring-blooming Camellias such as Victory White, Dr JC Raulston, and Nuccio’s Cameo are dense shrubs with upright growth. They will grow to be about 8-10 ft tall with a formal floral flair.
Spring pruning is necessary to help maintain the beauty of your spring flowering Camellias. Prune them immediately after the flowers fade. With proper care, you can enjoy vibrant bloom power, year after year.
FRINGE FLOWER
Create garden drama with the exciting addition of Fringe Flowers! Give your home an easy curb appeal boost with the unique spring blooms and vibrant colors. The evergreen foliage changes colors throughout the year with fragrant accents of showy flowers that emerge every spring.
Choose an exciting specimen with burgundy hues and interesting blooms such as Purple Diamond® Fringe Flower. This low-maintenance shrub is fast-growing with pink spider-like flowers. Purple Diamond® Fringe Flower is a semi-dwarf and it matures to the ideal size for any landscape, growing only 4-6 feet tall and wide. It is a reblooming variety with blooms that will enchant you. Plant in acidic soil and water as needed to keep the soil consistently moist during the first growing period. Once established, Fringe Flowers are relatively drought tolerant.
CLIMBING ROSE
A rose is never just a rose because there are so many varieties to choose from! For your spring-blooming landscape, start planting climbing roses now! Peggy Martin Rose is one of the most popular varieties and easiest to care for. They thrive in the south, do not require deadheading to rebloom, and they are disease-resistant. This spring flowering shrub is a multi-stemmed deciduous woody vine that has a twining and trailing growth habit. It provides fragrant accents of stunning pink blooms from spring through fall.
Did you know Peggy Martin Rose is also known as Hurricane Katrina Rose? They are the true symbol of planting hope, earning their namesake from a New Orleans resident, Peggy Martin. She was an active member of the New Orleans Old Garden Rose Society, growing several rose varieties at her home. When the hurricane hit, only 2 plants survived, and the climbing rose was one of them. It survived being submerged in 20 feet of saltwater for 2 weeks!
Climbing roses need a support to grow on such as a trellis, fence, or wall. Plant with slightly acidic soil in full sun. Let the soil dry between waterings and provide supplemental water during dry periods.
VIBURNUM
If you are wanting to add a pollinator paradise to your Texas garden, plant Viburnum! Bees love the large clusters of spring blooms. In fact, this spring flowering shrub is one of the most popular choices for landscapes. It is low-maintenance and thrives in full sun or planted as a partial shade delight.
Shades of Pink Viburnum will add vibrant bloom power with its bright pink buds that open to blush pink flowers. It is ideal for using as a hedge. Viburnum performs best in well-draining soils and regular waterings.
Growing Tips for Planting Spring Flowering Shrubs
Now that you know what to plant now, here are a few tips to help you grow with success!
- Ease the stress of transplanting and pre-treat your plants with Nature’s Creation® Root Stimulator. It stimulates root development by supplying the natural plant growth hormones from seaweed.
- When planting shrubs and trees, dig a hole twice the diameter of the root ball. Mix in equal parts of Calloway’s Premium Tree & Shrub Garden Soil with the native soil. Place the root ball in the hole and fill it with soil.
- Complete the look and protect your plant’s roots with Calloway’s Premium Organic Pine Bark Mulch. Our Pine Bark Mulch is a great choice for plants and shrubs that prefer an acidic environment. It provides an attractive top-dressing finish that helps reduce weed growth, retains moisture in the soil, and it helps maintain a constant soil temperature for your plant’s roots.
- Help your spring blooming shrubs flourish with Calloway’s Premium Flowering Shrub Plant Food. The 9-3-6 formula contains key ingredients to help your shrubs grow bigger, bolder blooms. Use on all blooming shrubs such as azaleas, camellias, and more. Apply at the time of planting or if you are feeding azaleas, apply every 45 days from the initial bloom drop.
Shop with Ease
At Calloway’s and Cornelius, we are here to help with all your spring gardening activities! Visit us today and explore our stunning collection of vibrant blooms, stately trees and shrubs, stylish pottery, lush indoor plants, and so much more! Shop any of our 28 neighborhood stores, where we have served our loyal customers for over 35 years.
Have questions? Ask our Texas Certified Nursery Professionals; they are here to help!
