Fill Your Spring Garden With A Variety Of Colors With This Must-Plant Flower

In the spring, after the drabness of the long, winter months, it's nice to fill your garden with as many shades as possible. You can make it easier to celebrate color in your garden with the bold snapdragon (Antirrhinum majus), an iconic flower with many different options when it comes to color, size, and type. Although you can plant some perennials in your garden once and they'll never leave, this isn't true for snapdragons. While they are classified as a perennial in certain conditions, they are more often grown as an annual. Its lipped flowers, often likened to a dragon's nose, come in a wide variety of colors, ranging from pink to orange to lavender. Snapdragons are native to southwestern Europe, where their cold tolerance makes them great for early spring blooms.

For the best blooms, snapdragons prefer full sun and moist, well-drained soil. An easy-to-grow flower choice for a gardener looking to add color to their outdoor space, snapdragons will grow pretty quickly from seed. Plants range from 6 inches to 3 feet high and can spread 1 to 2 feet in a given area. Grow snapdragons in your garden to add a tall splash of color to your beds, with straight stems extending upwards off the ground and bright flowers dotting the branches. Plus, a tip to make all the bees come buzzing to your garden is to plant snapdragons, which are ideal for pollinator gardens.

Snapdragons offer plenty of choice for gorgeous colors in the garden, as well as options for varying heights. Professional flower growers recognize four groups of snapdragons based on their reaction to seasonal temperatures and light. The best cultivars for the gardener interested in spring blooms is the third group, which are well-suited to spring cultivation. Avoid cultivars suited for greenhouse cultivation, which don't have a lot of luck when grown outside. If you stick to certain cultivars, you'll see that snapdragons are fuss-free plants that are great for gardening beginners.

Choose snapdragon cultivars that make sense in your garden design. If you have a spot in the back of a flower bed, taller varieties will work nicely behind other shorter flowers. A very tall cultivar option is 'Rocket Series,' which offers flowers in a stunning mix of pink, red, yellow, white, and purple. The 'Sonnet Series' are also tall, vibrant cultivars. For shorter options that can act as edging or be planted in containers, try dwarf cultivars like 'Tahiti' and 'Magic Carpet.' 'Tahiti' offers a bold burgundy hue while 'Magic Carpet' comes in a range of colors, including orange, yellow, violet, and red.