Earliest Blooming Plants for Your Spring Garden in SoCal

Written by Kelsey W.

Spring is a volatile time in Southern California when we often experience temperature swings that feel like winter one day and summer the next. Fortunately, there are several beautiful plants that thrive in these early spring conditions and will happily bloom for you while the days are still short and we’re just getting used to the slowly warming temperatures.

Not only does California boast several native plants that will bloom for you early in the year, but there are also some popular species from around the world that grow well in the early spring in Southern California gardens.

Sure, there is always something blooming somewhere in Southern California, but the darkest days of the winter months do indeed result in a slowdown of vibrant blooms and lush gardens. Let’s discuss some of the flowers you can bring to your winter yard that will get the springtime flowers rolling right along.

Early Blooming Native Flowers for Desert Homes

If you are in one of the drier and hotter areas of Southern California, like the high desert, the Inland Empire, or anywhere that xeriscaping is more popular than lush greenery, you’ll want to choose early-blooming flowers that also love the desert.

Some native plants that will beautify your yard with ease include desert sand verbena and desert sunflowers. Desert sand verbena grows quite well in sandy soil and may have you thinking you have a jasmine tree growing in your yard when the winds pick up its fragrance.

You can expect your desert verbena to start blooming in early winter and continue looking beautiful with its pink, lavender, or purple flowers for several months, with blooming peaking in the months of March and April. When established, the plant can actually continue blooming all the way into autumn.

Desert sunflowers bloom a little later than verbena and start bringing color to your yard around February. Their cheerful yellow blooms will continue making your yard look lovely until at least May, but potentially a little longer if you’re not too far out in the desert.

Early Blooming Native Flowers for Coastal Homes

For homes closer to the coast, you may want to check out Ceanothus (California lilac) for your early-blooming plants. You’ll get some lovely purple blooms from California lilac plants in March, but they may start blooming a little earlier if they’re planted in a sunny spot and the weather warms up prematurely.

Another terrific flower and one that brings even more color to your yard is the California poppy, which loves living at the coast. You’ll often see these beautiful flowers growing wild along the Pacific Coast Highway, but they grow well just about anywhere in Southern California, even several miles inland.

One of the best parts about planting California poppies, other than the fact that they’re the official state flower, is that they have a wonderfully long growing season. In total, they should bloom all the way from February through September, making them a wonderful way to add color to your yard in late winter.

Arroyo lupine is another wonderfully colorful flower for your coastal home (it will also grow inland, but not too far into the desert areas). Also known as Lupinus succulentus, this vibrant purple flower will start blooming in the middle of winter and continue well into the spring.

Early Blooming Native Flowers for Temperate SoCal Climates

If your home sits somewhere in the middle and isn’t right next to the coast but isn’t in the high desert either, you have quite a few beautiful flowers to choose from for your early spring garden. Not only can you choose virtually all of the plants listed as appropriate for coastal and desert areas, but there are also beautiful plants, like forsythia, which is great if you live in one of the cooler areas of SoCal.

As an early spring-blooming flower, forsythia creates a magnificent patch of yellow flowers in your yard that looks quite striking because the flowers appear in spring before the leaves start to grow. If you live in an area of SoCal that experiences a significant chill in the winter before starting to become milder in the spring, forsythia will grow quite happily in your yard.

Another brightly blooming bush that becomes quite colorful as early as January is the acacia bush or shrub (yes, a lot of early bloomers are yellow!). These plants are native to Australia but are quite happy to live in Southern California. They’re quite drought-tolerant, and they love the Mediterranean climate of Southern California.

The Long Game: Trees and Shrubs for Your Yard That Bloom Early

If you have the patience to plant a tree or large shrub and watch it grow over the years, you can certainly choose a tree that will give you early-season blooms each year. One type of tree to consider is the flowering currant, which is available in a few different species to Southern California homeowners.

The Chaparral currant and the white-flowered currant start blooming in late winter and continue throughout the spring. The white-flowered currant has, like the name would suggest, lovely white flowers, and the Chaparral currant offers pink blooms.

Another beautiful option for your yard is the camellia, which you can grow as a shrub or as a tree, depending on how you prune it. Although camellias aren’t native to Southern California (they come from Asia), they grow well in many environments throughout SoCal.

If you’re in pursuit of late winter or early spring flowers from your camellia, make sure to get a variety that blooms in those seasons, like Camellia japonica. Just bear in mind that the Japonica variety does like a little more shade than the other common SoCal type (Camelia sasanqua), so plant accordingly.

Encouraging Plants to Bloom Early

Putting plants into the ground with a natural blooming season in the late winter or early spring is the easiest way to ensure a beautiful and colorful yard as soon as the sun starts giving us more of its light each day, but it’s not your only option.

You can also get a little creative with the way you water and care for your current plants, and you might just get them to bloom a little earlier than usual. Two of the most important factors in encouraging blooms are sunlight and soil content.

First, you’ll want to make sure the plants you want to bloom sit in the sunniest place in your yard. Putting your plants in pots that will allow you to move them into the sunniest places in your yard is one option. Putting your plants into the ground in a south-facing area with a lot of sun is another option.

Another way to encourage your plants to bloom is to check the soil content. If you keep the nitrogen in the soil relatively low, the plants won’t be so quick to grow leaves and will be more apt to focus on growing flowers. You don’t want to starve the plants of nitrogen in their soil, but just keep it a little lower than average.

Additionally, you’ll want to make sure that you water the plants as if it’s their growing season rather than the season in which they would otherwise hibernate. Often, plants don’t need as much water in the winter, but they’ll be more likely to bloom when you increase the water you give them.

Finally, when your flowers start blooming, you can encourage them to continue doing so by making sure to remove the old, spent blooms. Doing so will allow the plant to focus on creating new blooms rather than keeping the old ones alive.

Tip on Plant Placement: Although many of the plants discussed here have an area of Southern California that might be considered “best,” those rules aren’t absolutely firm. Sure, California poppies love living along the coast, but you can certainly grow them well inland, too, as long as you give them the right growing conditions.

Bring Greenery to Your Yard at Green Thumb Nursery

Spring is coming, and it’s time for plants to awaken and start blooming again. If you’re searching for plants to beautify your garden this spring, come to Green Thumb Nursery, where you’ll find a wealth of options. Greet the spring with a garden filled with lovely, fragrant flowers this year.

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