Home Garden Flowers

Camellias flower during the late fall and early winter.

Plant flowers in your home garden that will bring year-round color to your landscape. Mix flowering evergreen shrubs with annuals and perennials that bloom during each season. Select species for your home garden based on the hardiness zone in your area and on the amount of daily sunlight the garden receives. Soil pH and drainage are also considerations, but you can alter the pH levels and increase drainage as necessary.

Spring Garden Flowers

Tulips bloom during the spring.

Tulips and daffodils are two of the more popular flowers for growing at home. Often the first harbinger of spring, both flowers grow from bulbs planted in the fall. Tulips offer an array of colors in a variety of species. Tulip varieties include parrots, single earlies, double earlies and cottage. More than 50 species of daffodils are available, but most cultivars are shades of yellow. Plant groups of tulips or daffodils in flower beds in front of your home, around trees or along walkways. You can also grow both tulips and daffodils in containers. Both types of spring flowers enjoy at least six hours of sun each day.

Summer Garden Flowers

Plant petunias in containers or in flower beds for summer color.

Varieties of summer flowers that you can grow at home include annuals and perennials. Annual summer flowers include begonias and impatiens for shade gardens and petunias, snapdragons and marigolds for sunny gardens. If replanting flowers around your home each year does not appeal to you, plant perennials that return every year. Summer-blooming perennial flowers include lilies, astilbe, coral bells, clematis and hydrangea and gardenia. Hydrangea and gardenia are flowering shrubs that grow well as foundation plants along the sides of your home.

Autumn Garden Flowers

Asters are a bright spot in a fall garden.

Many summer-blooming annuals produce flowers up until the first frost. Perennials that you can plant in your home garden to bloom specifically during the autumn months include chrysanthemums, sunflowers, sedums, Scotch heather, Japanese anemone, aster and Peruvian lily. All of these except the sedums prefer areas in your fall garden with full to partial sun. Sedums can also grow in partial sun, but also do well in shady areas.

Winter Garden Flowers

Pansies add color to a stark winter landscape.

Some of the most decorative flowers for your home garden bloom during the winter months. Camellias, winter jasmine, pansies and winter honeysuckle can bring bright colors to bare winter landscapes. Camellias are flowering, evergreen shrubs that offer showy blossoms during the late fall and early winter. Winter jasmine is also a flowering shrub with small, trailing yellow flowers that can begin blooming in January, depending on your climate. Winter honeysuckle is another shrub with fragrant white flowers. Winter honeysuckles grow up to 8 feet tall, making them a good choice for foundation plants. Pansies are colorful compact flowers that are hardy during the winter in U.S. Department of Agriculture zones 6, 7 and 8.

References

• Flower Garden Bulbs; Understanding Bulb Flowers; Tony Robinson
• University of Vermont; Selecting Perennials; Leonard P. Perry
• USDA: Camellia

Resources

• Arkansas Home Garden: Winter Jasmine