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Bridal Wreath Spiraea

Bridal wreath spiraea resembles baby’s breath.

Flowering quince and forsythia set a precedent. Bridal wreath spiraea, Spirea prunifolia, somehow became old fashioned too. All three are only beginning to regain popularity. All are deciduous, so defoliate for autumn and remain bare through winter. They then bloom spectacularly on bare stems for late winter or early spring. Foliage develops after bloom.

Bridal wreath spiraea, like forsythia, develops many upright and arching basal stems. Its stems can grow taller than eight feet, although they are typically a bit shorter. Removal of old stems after bloom promotes growth of new stems, which bloom better. Indiscriminate pruning ruins their naturally upwardly flaring form. A slight bit of partial shade is tolerable.

Almost all bridal wreath spiraea are of the cultivar ‘Plena’. Their double flowers are fluffy but tiny, between just a quarter and a half inch wide. The simple species, and the variety ‘simpliciflora‘ with single flowers, are rare. Regardless of floral form, floral color is limited to white. Foliage might develop yellow color for autumn where autumn weather is cooler.

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Chinese Fringe Flower

Fringe flower is an early bloomer.

The simple species is notably distinct from its several popular modern cultivars. Chinese fringe flower, Loropetalum chinense, grows very slowly to about fifteen feet tall. Its simple evergreen foliage is exclusively light green. Its small and ribbony flowers are exclusively creamy white. Limber and arching stems can eventually overwhelm adjacent vegetation.

However, this simple species is now very rare. Popular modern cultivars are much more compact. Although a few can grow taller, most are no more than five feet tall. Most exhibit delightfully purplish or bronzed foliage. Individual leaves grow about an inch or two long. Floral color ranges through white, creamy white, pink, rosy pink, rich red and garnet red.

Chinese fringe flower has a woodsy style. Shearing or aggressive pruning compromises its naturally relaxed form. It is naturally an understory species, so is somewhat tolerant of partial shade. Bloom is most abundant as winter relinquishes to early spring. It continues sporadically throughout most of the year. Blooming stems can be handsome cut flowers, and tolerate forcing bloom.

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Flowering Quince

Flowering quince blooms prior to foliation.

Flowering crabapples are the same genus as fruiting crabapples. Flowering cherries are the same genus as fruiting cherries. Flowering quince, Chaenomeles spp., though, is not the same genus as fruiting quince. Available cultivars are generally floriferous but sterile hybrids. Only four basic species produce small fruit that are good for little more than jelly.

They bloom magnificently though, on bare stems, prior to foliation. Profusion of bloom is comparable to that of flowering crabapple and flowering cherry. It begins early enough to finish before some flowering cherries begin. Flowering crabapples start even later. Floral color ranges from bright white to deep red. This includes orangish pink and orangish red.

Unlike flowering cherry trees and flowering crabapple trees, flowering quince is shrubby. The largest might grow no higher than ten feet, with irregular branch structure. Some old cultivars are thorny. Modern cultivars are more compact, shaplier and thornless. Younger trunks should methodically replace older trunks. Pruning can happen after spring bloom.

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Heath

Heath prefers rich and acidic soils.

For Scotland, various species and cultivars of heath, Erica, may be as common as lily of the Nile is here. It has become somewhat popular in the Pacific Northwest and the North Coast of California also. It is likely less popular locally because it prefers acidic soil, and cooler and moister climates. Here, it appreciates regular watering and shelter from wind.

Mature heath is generally less than five feet tall, with densely mounding form. Only a few rare species get significantly taller. Most popular cultivars stay lower. Some creep slowly over their ground without getting more than half a foot deep. Their small and very narrow leaves are no more than half of an inch long, and almost resemble small spruce needles. 

Even with such a fine texture, this evergreen foliage is delightfully woodsy. It is generally dark forest green. Some cultivars produce ruddy, yellow or gray new foliage in spring. Of these, some retain their rich foliar color through much of the year. Tiny heath flowers that bloom most abundantly through winter or spring are white, pink, red, or purplish.

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Ranunculus

Ranunculus enjoys mild weather through spring.

If their strange tubers got into the garden last autumn, ranunculus should be blooming by now. Although their schedule suggests that they crave winter chill like other spring bulbs, they merely want to disperse their roots early. Then, they can bloom as winter ends, and continue until spring weather gets too warm for them. They mostly finish prior to summer. 

If tubers did not get into the garden earlier last autumn, young ranunculus plants become available from nurseries late in winter. Although generally a spring annual, tubers, which go dormant by summer, have potential to regenerate perennially for subsequent springs. Digging and storing tubers through most of their dormancy might improve their potential.

Ranunculus bloom can be pink, red, orange, yellow, purple, cream or white. Flowers are plump and neatly dense with many papery petals, like little peony flowers. They stand on sturdy stems about half a foot to a foot high. Their finely textured basal foliage resembles parsley, but with a lighter color. Dormant tubers are tufts of short, plump and woody roots.

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Grape Hyacinth

Grape hyacinth is very reliably perennial.

Are they reliably perennial or invasive? In ideal situations, old fashioned grape hyacinth, Muscari armeniacum, can get a bit too eager to proliferate and migrate. Not only do their bulbs divide efficiently, but their seed disperse beyond bulb colonies. However, bulbs do not migrate too rapidly for containment. Thorough deadheading inhibits seed dispersion.

Grape hyacinth provides some of the earliest spring bloom. Floral spikes of tiny rounded flowers do not get much more than six inches tall, but are delightfully abundant. The rich blue color is exquisite. Hybrids and other species can bloom with pale pink, pale purple, white, yellow, or various shades or tints of blue. The grassy foliage is somewhat rubbery.

If they do not migrate efficiently enough, established colonies of grape hyacinth are easy to divide in autumn. Of course, it will be necessary to mark their locations as their foliage dies back at the end of spring. Division is easier and faster than growing new plants from seed. If hybrids produce seed at all, it may not be viable. If it is, it may not be true to type.

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Flowering Peach

Flowering peach flowers produce no fruit.

Since it does not produce an abundance of cumbersome fruit, flowering peach, Prunus persica, does not need the aggressive pruning while dormant through winter that fruiting peach requires, and can get significantly larger. However, tip pruning after bloom instead promotes shrubbier growth that blooms more prolifically the following spring. The fluffy double flowers are clear white, bright pink or rich pinkish red. ‘Peppermint’ flowering peach has red and white flowers, with a few flowers that are only white, and sometimes a few that are only red.

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Daffodil

Bright yellow daffodil is still classic.

What is the difference between narcissus and daffodil? That is very open to interpretation. Daffodil is really only a particular type of narcissus that tends to bloom with larger and more colorful flowers that lack the rich fragrance of the smaller and commonly white flowers of other narcissus. Most daffodil bloom singly. Only a few bloom with a few flowers together. Other narcissus are outfitted with more individual flowers to each stem.

When they were buried in sunny spots last autumn, bare daffodil bulbs looked like pointed onions. They rested through much of winter so that they could be among the first flowers to bloom late in winter. The rather short and narrow bluish leaves stand vertically. The flaring flowers face outward with a bit of a downward or upward tilt. After bloom, deteriorating flowers should be plucked, but foliage should remain until it yellows and gets shed naturally.

The most familiar daffodil are bright yellow. Others can be white, various shades of orange or yellow, or a combination of these colors. Six outer petals (which are actually three petals and three sepals) radiate around a central trumpet.

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Saucer Magnolia

Spring color blooms before winter ends.

Before the deciduous foliage regenerates, saucer magnolia, Magnolia X soulangeana, is already completely overwhelmed with a profusion of big pastel pink and white flowers. Some of the many cultivars bloom white, paler pink or purplish. Some are more purple than pink. Individual flowers are about six inches wide. Some cultivars bloom with globular flowers that do not open quite so broadly. Others open even wider. The largest flowers can get almost a foot wide. Eventually, fading flowers will be replaced with big and soft lime green leaves. Most saucer magnolia trees are grown with several trunks and low branches to display the bloom more prominently, as well as to display the sculptural branch structure while bare through winter. The flat bark is strikingly light gray.

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Indian Hawthorn

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Indian hawthorn is an early bloomer.

Here on the West Coast of California, Indian hawthorn, Raphiolepis indica, was formerly popular as a foundation plant. The compact hollies that were used as such in the East never became very popular here. Back when rain gutters were prohibitively expensive, foundation plants diffused water as it fell from roofs. This limited erosion, and also inhibited splattering onto lower parts of walls.

Modern Indian hawthorn cultivars are now appreciated elsewhere in landscapes for profuse pink bloom in late winter or early spring. Sporadic bloom might continue through summer, with a minor secondary bloom phase in autumn. The most compact cultivars display slightly richer pink bloom, followed by mildly bronzed new foliage. At least one cultivar exhibits barely blushed white bloom.

‘Majestic Beauty’ is a cultivar that might be a hybrid with loquat. It can grow as a small tree more than ten feet high and wide. Other cultivars do not get half as big. Most get less than four feet high. They work nicely as low and plump hedges, but should be shorn after bloom. Full sun exposure and occasional irrigation should be sufficient. They are popular, because they are so undemanding.