How to Landscape with Spring Blooming Ornamental Trees

Whether you're starting a new landscape or enhancing an established one, include some spring blooming ornamental trees for structure and beauty. Blooming trees accent your garden with vertical interest and provide a focal point in what would otherwise be a flat expanse. Spring blooming trees also provide an important nectar source to pollinators emerging from dormancy.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

1. Start with small to medium sized blooming trees. Although it's tempting to achieve instant maturity by purchasing a large specimen, smaller trees suffer less shock and catch up to large trees quickly.

2. Plant a spring blooming tree that matches the scale of your garden and yard. If you have a small yard, choose a tree with a small mature height, such as crab apples or dogwoods.

3. Consider the architectural style of your home. Classical cottage garden trees, like redbuds, enhance a Tudor or ranch-style home. Bradford pear trees complement modern or formal structures.

4. Look at the other attributes of the spring blooming tree. Ornamental trees have a brief blooming season, so choose trees that have other features, such as attractive bark or vivid fall foliage.

5. Orient the blooming tree so that it sits at the back of a garden bed. Use increasingly shorter shrubs and plants toward the front of the bed.

6. Place a moisture-loving tree close to a water feature, where you can enjoy the reflection of the blooms. You can plant weeping cherries in temperate climates or magnolias in the south.

7. Achieve a natural look by planting your spring-blooming tree slightly off center in a flowerbed. Perfect symmetry only works well in formal garden beds.