Flowering trees to plant in spring

Many spring gardens are built around flowering trees, and with good reason. When a flowering cherry, dogwood, star magnolia or redbud is covered with colourful blossoms, it always steals the show. These guidelines will show you how to ensure your trees flower beautifully.

Even if your yard is small, you can probably find a good place for one of these compact, spring-blooming beauties. You can cut branches from flowering trees and shrubs to use in your indoor arrangements. They combine beautifully with the flowers of bulbs, and you can mix in bits of greenery from emerging vines to fill the vase.

When flowering cherry or forsythia branches are gathered just as the flower buds are opening, they will usually keep for more than a week in a vase if you crush the stem base.

• One of the first spots to consider is the area just beyond one of the front corners of your house.
• When small trees or large shrubs are situated so that they visually pull the corner of the house outwards, they often make the house appear larger and also visually tie the house to the surrounding landscape.
• As long as they are set at least four to five metres (13 to 16 feet) away from exterior walls, they will not block views or crowd the structure.
• Do not assume that you need to flank both sides of your house with matching trees unless you want a strongly formal look.
• Instead, choose two different plants for these strategic corner positions, such as a flowering cherry on one side balanced with a bushy smokebush on the other.
• Non-flowering trees with showy foliage or interesting bark, such as Japanese maple and river birch, are also fine trees to feature in your spring landscape.

• Plant spring-flowering bulbs beneath spring-flowering shrubs and trees in any colour combinations you like.
• Sharing root space is no problem for these plants, which are designed by nature to grow together.
• Be sure to let the bulb foliage die down rather than mowing it, so they can continue to store food.