Inspiring Spring Flowers

Each spring I love to watch the different flowers take their turns blooming. It’s always a fun and slightly magical to see what comes up from the year before and how well the new seeds will do.

I always find myself inspired to create when the first flowers emerge. I have several pieces of art that I’ve created in recent years from the beautiful blooms. Here’s a look at my current work in progress (I’m working on painting the flower parts now).

In today’s post I share some of my favorites from this past spring.

The First to Emerge

The first flowers to emerge in the spring were the crocuses – in both yellow and purple. Seeing the first pops of color poke through the dead leaves and grass of the winter always brings new inspiration and hope.

These first bloomers are the inspiration for my current flower drawing series. Check out the end of the post for a picture of the first two from the series.

The Blooms Continue

The next to come up were the daffodils and tulips. This year was the first year that we planted these double daffodils (right). We also planted pink daffodils but they didn’t end up growing this year. A surprise were these violas that came back from last year and have been still growing and blooming since April.

There were all colors of beautiful tulips – bright, warm colors pictured below and also a pretty purples, pinks, and yellow. There were mini tulips too. The deer really enjoyed the tulips as they reached the end of their time. The lilacs were really pretty this year and lasted a couple of weeks. There were these purple ones and white ones also.

Exciting Surprises

One of the biggest surprises of the spring were the lupines. I planted them two years ago and they didn’t do much of anything the past two years (not a single bloom). This year they were gigantic and had so many beautiful blooms.

Also a surprise were some snapdragons that returned from ones we planted last year – maroon and yellow ones.

More Variety

These beautiful potted fuchias were new this year. They bloomed until the last bout of high temperatures. There were lots of new irises this year. These purple ones were my favorite, and also the white ones were really pretty.

One of my favorite things is when the Evening Primroses start to bloom (right). They seem to start about the time of year where the days get the longest and bloom at dusk into the night. They twirl to open and it’s really cool to see. It’s also a good indication that it’s starting to get late and time to head inside.

Peonies

The peonies are always beautiful every year. The plants have been growing for a while so there’s always so many blooms. This year they bloomed around the same time where we had the heat wave and then had the intense smoke come in from Canada so we didn’t get to enjoy them as long as usual.

You can see the haze a little bit in the bottom left picture. This was a new peony plant that came up this year. I’m not sure if it was because of the haze or if it normally does this, but it started out as an orange-red color and then turned salmon and before it wilted I swear it was a cream color. I’m looking forward to seeing what it does next year.

Flowers Leading into Summer

The next flowers to arrive were the daisies and other wildflowers. These daisies are wild ones that spread naturally and have been transplanted around the yard. I’m not sure what these other flowers are called but they were in a wildflower shade mix that I planted last year and these are the ones that decided to return. Last year there were poppies too, but I haven’t seen any starting this year yet.

The white roses started blooming this past week and also the lilies and day lilies. There’s a little break before the gladiolus and dahlias will be up but there’s exciting things happening in the vegetable garden to watch grow in the meantime.

Do you enjoy planting flowers?

These are some of the flowers that I’ve enjoyed watching come up this spring. Do you plant flowers too? Have any favorites?

About the Artist

Laura Jaen Smith is an artist who lives and works out of Horseheads, New York. Her inspiration comes from observing the beauty she sees around her. After a decade living out west, she returned back to New York State and started seeing the same old places with new eyes. She is most interested in capturing small moments in nature that might otherwise be overlooked.

Visit her shop or ask about available works.