Best early spring flowers in the Pacific Northwest.
When making garden plans for your PNW landscape, you’ll want to consider what you’re planting and when those flowers will bloom. Because nothing beats an early spring morning and seeing your garden come to life.
Pacific Northwest gardening is very dependent on the seasons. We have very distinct weather patterns like clockwork every year.
My gardening zone is zone 8B. You can find your growing zone here!
What’s nice about knowing your growing season is you know what to expect to be blooming and when.
Let’s get into it and find out what I believe are the best early spring flowers in the Pacific Northwest.
Creative Gardening
The best part of gardening is being creative and making it your own. With such a large variety of plants and colors, every PNW landscaping project can look entirely different.
When building a garden border, you’ll want to consider when things will bloom. You wouldn’t want to fill your entire border with plants that only bloom in June.
Although June would be spectacular the rest of your gardening year would be very boring.
Hellebores
Hellebores are one of the best early spring flowers in the Pacific Northwest because they are one of the first to bloom in early March.
In our garden, we have beautiful purple hellebores that bloom as winter ends and their deep color and flowers are a promise of spring.
In our gardening zone, they are a perennial and come back all on their own year after year. Hellebores are also deer resistant. Meaning that they are not going to fall prey to a hungry wild animal.
Hellebores are also very versatile and low maintenence. They aren’t picky about sun requirements. Although they can handle almost full sun or shade, partial sun is where they are happiest.
Daffodils
Ok, daffodils are the happiest little flower, can we all agree? Their cheerful color and unique blossoms are a commemoration of spring and Easter time. The Mount Hood daffodil is a gorgeous creamy white flower, see that pictured below.
We have them mixed amongst the more colorful tulips that will soon follow their lead.
Daffodils are a hardy perennial and are planted initially from bulbs. In our more mild growing zone the bulbs are left in the ground and will come back year after year.
Although daffodils only bloom once a year, their presence in the garden with their bright color and elegant stems makes them one of the best early spring flowers in the Pacific Northwest.
Tulips
Above all the early spring flowers, Tulips take the cake when it comes to popularity. Where I’m from, people fly from all over to visit and tour the fields at the Skagit Valley Tulip festival.
I love driving through the valley. The fields are blankets of reds, pinks, and purples and so many more. They make fantastic cut flowers and leave a beautiful statement in the garden.
Similar to the daffodil, tulips are planted from bulbs. They don’t mind being potted up in plants and are just as happy to live out in the garden beds year after year.
Hyacinths
One of the best early spring flowers in the Pacific Northwest are hyacinths. They are dense, cone-like flowers that emerge in early to mid spring.
We grow a lot of grape hyacinth. What I love about this variety is that it is low growing and makes for a colorful, compact border.
Hyacinths bloom for just under a month and have a potent, wonderful fragrance.
Because they are hardy perennials, these too can winter over in the ground and come back year after year.
Bleeding heart
This flower looks just like it sounds. Blooming in April-May, this early spring flower grows at incredible speeds after the winter. The blooms are gorgeous pink heart shaped flowers that grow multiple blooms per stem. Although they don’t make good cut flowers, the bleeding heart is happy living in a shady spot of your garden and brings lovely spring color to your gardening space.
The bleeding heart can grow quite large, however, after blooming and after the foliage dies back, you’ll want to heavily prune it to the ground.
It’s scary to cut something back so far, but don’t worry, this plant will come back bigger and better than ever and hopefully with some extra little plant babies.
Camellia
Lastly, who can forget the camellias. Camellias are rose-like flowers blooming on large plants. They come in many different colors and present themselves with layers of petals and a sweet scent. Such a romantic flower that brings so much color to a late winter and early spring landscape.
On deck
On deck are going to be some later spring blooms for your PNW landscaping.
During the time all these beautiful early spring blooms, you’ll have lots of plants coming up and growing their foliage.
In May you should expect your iris to bloom. An exciting large bearded flower which grows from tubers.
Rhododendrons should be gearing up with their buds. If you drive anywhere in the Pacific Northwest, I bet you almost anything you’ll see a rhododendron in at least every other yard.
I mean of course you would, it’s the state flower of Washington!
There you have it
These are my favorite and the best early spring flowers in the Pacific Northwest. Although there are so many more, these I feel should be in everyone’s yard. PNW landscaping ideas are always best when you think ahead of time of the growing season. This allows you to enjoy each new season with fresh flowers, new varieties, and an ever changing garden. I wish you all the beautiful spring flowers!
