Plant Planning for Season Changes

As a professional landscape contractor your reputation depends not only on the work your crew does but also the appearance of your customers’ landscape throughout the year. Selecting year round interest plants emphasizes the beauty of your landscape design as well as reinforcing the value of your services to customers when surrounding yards are dormant.

The main characteristics of good transitional plantings are those that are early indicators (blooming early in the spring) those with interesting defoliation patterns or peeling bark and those that maintain a verdant appearance year round. Below are our top picks for early spring species that exemplify these traits:

Forsythia- Marked by golden yellow blooms Forsythia is one of the earliest seasonal indicators. In fact some landscape contractors even use the blooming of forsythia as a reminder to begin applying pre-emergent herbicide to their customers’ turf and ornamental beds. Another benefit to specifying this plant is its affordability.

Crocus- This plant starts as a bulb that’s planted in the fall before the first frost of the year. It requires long periods of coolness and dark to activate so it performs best in areas that have a distinct shift from winter to spring weather patterns. It blooms low to the ground and displays best in clusters.

Daffodils- Another flower that starts as a bulb daffodils are another early indicator like forsythia. Remember to plant these bulbs with the pointed ends up. Popular early-blooming color varieties include Dutch Master and February Gold.

Boxwood- This long-time favorite shrub remains a nice looking plant throughout the year in a majority of the country. The Solid Evergreen variety tends to do well in most hardiness zones and provides some good texture and a leafy backdrop for the early blooming flowers included in this list.

Flowering cherries- Flowering cherry trees come in a variety of colors and contrast nicely in texture with the dormant leaves of other plants early in the season. This tree usually does well in the southeast up through the northern region of the US.

It’s important to remember that your specific jobsite location will play a major role in what spring planting(s) will perform best. This list is designed as a basic guide; however factors like sun exposure USDA zones the need for pest resistant plants or specific watering requirements will also impact the recommended plant types.

SiteOne’s Nursery Direct Program offers direct nationwide shipment of quality plant products directly to your jobsite even if you don’t have a nursery near you. Contact your local branch to learn more about this program and the plants that typically work best for the spring transition in your particular area.