See 15 Gorgeous Gardens in Their Spring Glory
Get ideas for your home and soak up the season’s beauty with these gardens that are bursting with blooms
Wherever you are, spring is a magical season. Bulbs emerge from the ground, blossoms unfurl and wildflowers pop up along roadsides. For most of us, the season feels all too short, so it’s nice to take a moment to notice and appreciate its beauty.
Whether you’re looking for planting ideas for next year or just want to sit back and enjoy a photo scroll, take a look at these images from 15 glorious spring gardens, ranging from cottage-style and natural woodland spaces to a sidewalk strip bursting with spring bulbs.
Whether you’re looking for planting ideas for next year or just want to sit back and enjoy a photo scroll, take a look at these images from 15 glorious spring gardens, ranging from cottage-style and natural woodland spaces to a sidewalk strip bursting with spring bulbs.
2. Glorious bluebells. There’s hardly anything more romantic or quintessentially spring than fields of bluebells, whose blue-purple blossoms blanket the ground and perfume the air with a subtle floral fragrance between mid-April and late May in the United Kingdom and northern Spain. There are two common species, English bluebell (Hyacinthoides non-scripta) and Spanish bluebell (H. hispanica), and both thrive in areas with filtered sunlight and with regular water.
Design tip: To re-create a natural woodland effect, plant bluebells — or another spring-blooming bulb that thrives in your region — in drifts under trees and allow the plants to naturalize.
Design tip: To re-create a natural woodland effect, plant bluebells — or another spring-blooming bulb that thrives in your region — in drifts under trees and allow the plants to naturalize.
3. Garden party. This table pulled under an apple tree in bloom looks like the perfect spot to host a spring brunch. If you have a standout feature in your garden this season, like a flowering tree or a bed just coming into bloom, try temporarily moving your outdoor furniture to be up close to the action.
See outdoor dining sets
See outdoor dining sets
4. Pastel spring duo. This lovely spring planting combination would work in a garden of any size. Climbing pale pink ‘Cécile Brünner’ roses spill over the top of a wooden fence, and purple spring-flowering iris has been planted below as a complement.
Try these three other pink-and-purple spring combinations: pink clematis and purple allium, pink tulips with purple nemesia, and pink crabapple underplanted with purple grape hyacinth.
Try these three other pink-and-purple spring combinations: pink clematis and purple allium, pink tulips with purple nemesia, and pink crabapple underplanted with purple grape hyacinth.
5. Monet garden at the New York Botanical Garden. Bursting at the seams with a watercolor palette of blooms, this garden alley was part of a Monet exhibition at the New York Botanical Garden a few years ago. The garden and exhibit paid tribute to the garden around the impressionist artist’s home in Giverny, France.
Design tip: In addition to adopting a watercolor-themed color palette for floral borders, you can also try the design trick of mounding beds before planting. By banking the soil up 1 foot or more, you can give a boost to shorter plants and create a display worthy of a painting.
Design tip: In addition to adopting a watercolor-themed color palette for floral borders, you can also try the design trick of mounding beds before planting. By banking the soil up 1 foot or more, you can give a boost to shorter plants and create a display worthy of a painting.
6. Rooftop delight. This rooftop garden in Southeast London provides a fabulous reason for the homeowners to stop and appreciate spring blossoms, and acts as a resting spot for urban wildlife, such as birds, bees, butterflies and other insects.
The plants — which include white, pink-streaked and dark purple tulips; olive trees; grape hyacinth; Latin American fleabane (Erigeron karvinskianus); coral bells (Heuchera sp.); and creeping rosemary — provide food sources for pollinators and help create habitat.
See more ways to attract wildlife to a small garden
The plants — which include white, pink-streaked and dark purple tulips; olive trees; grape hyacinth; Latin American fleabane (Erigeron karvinskianus); coral bells (Heuchera sp.); and creeping rosemary — provide food sources for pollinators and help create habitat.
See more ways to attract wildlife to a small garden
7. Bulb walk. Banked with multiple narcissus and tulip types, this semicircular walkway behind a Salt Lake City home bursts with a profusion of color each spring. To extend the enjoyment of a spring garden that relies on bulbs, choose varieties with successional bloom times. That way, the color and interest will last from early spring until late in the season.
What to Do After Spring Bulbs Have Bloomed
What to Do After Spring Bulbs Have Bloomed
8. Wild romance. Fall-planted alliums pop up in spring like giant purple pompoms in this rambling garden in Sussex, England. Easy-care alliums add height and movement to a garden, swaying and bobbing with the slightest breeze.
Keeping beds more natural and allowing perennials to billow over pathways, rather than be confined by clipped hedges, creates a garden that feels more relaxed and carefree.
Keeping beds more natural and allowing perennials to billow over pathways, rather than be confined by clipped hedges, creates a garden that feels more relaxed and carefree.
9. Sidewalk splendor. Delight your neighbors by planting a spring display out where it can be enjoyed by passersby. In this Chicago garden, the designer packed a sidewalk bed with a combination of narcissus and pink, red and orange tulips against a backdrop of evergreen conifers, barberry and other shrubs.
4 Gorgeous Garden Looks for a Narrow Planting Strip
4 Gorgeous Garden Looks for a Narrow Planting Strip
10. Spring in the Southwest. Spring in the desert and other arid regions can be spectacular, but gardens in those areas are uniquely different from those filled with spring classics like bulbs and pansies. If you live in a region with an arid climate, try planting Parry’s penstemon (Penstemon parryi), an easy-care perennial native to the low deserts of central Arizona and Sonora, Mexico. The plants send out 2- to 3-foot-tall spikes covered in bell-shaped pink flowers from late winter through spring that act as hummingbird magnets.
11. Cottage charm. Dark purple tulips deepen the color palette of this cheerful display outside a home in Oxfordshire, England. Although pastels usually prevail in spring gardens, adding dark flowers, like purple tulips or hyacinth, or a dark-leaved foliage plant, like chocolatey coral bells (Heuchera sp.), amidst the pastel blooms can provide more richness and contrast in the garden as a whole.
Find a landscape designer near you
Find a landscape designer near you
12. Hillside of narcissus. Covering this hillside walkway up to a New York home like drifts of snow, banks of white daffodils transform the landscape in spring. To re-create this look, choose a variety of narcissus that will naturalize over a few years. A few to consider: white-flowering ‘White Hood’, yellow ‘Dutch Master’ and early-blooming, cream-colored ‘Erlicheer’.
13. Flowering shrub. Frothy doublefile viburnum (Viburnum plicatum f. tomentosum ‘Mariesii’) steals the show on the far side of this backyard water garden. The deciduous shrub blooms in mid to late spring, when it’s covered in flat-topped double flower clusters that appear along tiered horizontal branches. Try planting doublefile viburnum or the related Japanese snowball (V. plicatum) at the back of a border or along the side of the house.
See 9 top flowering shrubs
See 9 top flowering shrubs
14. Tulips and boxwood. Sometimes you can’t beat the classics. In this Denver front yard, rows of red tulips against clipped boxwood hedges border the entry walk and lawn. The limited color palette and mass planting in defined beds keep the design simple and establish an elegant, formal theme.
15. Crabapple. Ornamental crabapples are beautiful small-scale trees year-round, but they really stand out during the April and May bloom time. Here, the trees have been pleached, with their branches trained into a narrow space, to form an elevated screen of branches and soft pale pink and white flowers.
Your turn: What have you enjoyed in gardens this spring? Share pictures in the Comments below.
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What to do in your garden this month
Make Your Garden a Haven for Backyard Birds
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What to do in your garden this month
Make Your Garden a Haven for Backyard Birds
When choosing a pair, select rose and clematis varieties that have the same bloom time (early spring, midspring or late spring to early summer) to create a double-flowering garden vignette.
Learn more about pairing roses and clematises in a garden