In Bloom This Week in NYC

With its gray bark and red spring blossoms, red maples (Acer rubrum) are easy to spot from a distance in the spring landscape. The dense cluster of red flowers has reddish pedicels that elongate as the flowers develop from March into April. Leaves will emerge slightly red and mature to a dark green with a gray underside.

Creeping myrtle (Vinca minor) is an evergreen groundcover that creates a thick carpet of small glossy green leaves. Even though this plant spreads well and has a delicate lavender blossom in spring beware that it is invasive if not maintained. After entirely too much time devoted to removing Vinca from creeping into natural woodlands I would not recommend this plant for the country.

Granted, the willows in Central Park are not blooming, they simply leaf-out earlier than many other trees, but what a fabulous hint of all the green soon to come!

Forsythia are popular because they are early and prolific blooming shrubs. Quick growers in full sun, you can cut them back pretty hard after they flower in spring and still expect a good shot of yellow blossoms the following year.

Not until this year did I realize how many Cornus mas there are planted in Central Park. The small clusters of yellow blossoms that form along the stems are not the most showy, but they still provide a nice subtle bloom while most other shrubs are still dormant. They can mature to have beautiful natural forms, and you will find birds attracted to the edible fruit in a couple months. At an old job a friend and I discovered one that was really sweet and we didn’t mind picking from it ourselves.

With their almost electric blue color, blue squill (Scilla siberica) is a striking early spring bulb. Native to Russia and southwest Asia, blue squill only reaches about 6 inches tall. However, when you come across patches of them in the landscape you quickly realize how powerful they can be when planted in mass.

Classified into 12 divisions, I could talk about daffodils (Nacissus spp.) for days. But what you really need to know? Plant them in the fall and make sure they are deep enough to avoid frost damage. Daffodils are deer and squirrel resistant, and with so many cultivars to choose from you should be able to find one that strikes your fancy.

Magnolias (Magnolia spp.) are one of the best early bloomers with their pronounced buds opening to large flowers. The flowers are not quite open yet, but keep your eyes out because you won’t want to miss them. Magnolias showy flowers and manageable size make them one of my spring favorites.


Japanese pieris (Pieris japonica) is an upright broadleaf evergreen shrub. The buds set last summer are now long weeping racemose panicles of small white flowers that may have a subtle fragrance. A slow grower, mature specimens of this shrub are something to admire.

Others that were still holding on to some flowers but not enough to photograph:
crocus (Crocus sp.)
serviceberry (Amelanchier sp.)
winter rose (Helleborus sp.)
winter honeysuckle (Lonicera fragrantissima)