What Blooms to Expect the Next Few Weeks

The Easter ham and coconut cake may be just fond memories but the pots of daffodils, tulips, lilies and hyacinths will continue to thrive for a while, happy on the counter getting that occasional drink.

When the blooms begin to fade, dig a hole in a sunny spot, pop them out of the container and into the ground. Chances are some will make a revisit next year, but in some cases they may not, according to one local grower who has been working with Easter flowers for more than 30 years.

"It all depends," Clay Shriver said. "Daffodils are a sure bet. They'll come back."

Shriver is the owner of Potted Memories, south of Williamsburg.

"Tulips are probably second and hyacinths are probably the least likely to come back next year."

The stately white Easter lilies are a guarantee for a 2023 return visit, but look out, Shriver said.

"Easter lilies can get tall, I've seen them grow to five or six feet tall."

A handful of bone meal mixed into the soil when planting help provide the nutrition for any bulb species, increasing the chances of a good spring show.

As with all bulbs, those grown in pots or repeats of past years, it is vital to keep the green foliage in place long after the blooms have faded. These stems hold the food needed for the bulbs to thrive.

Remove the spent blooms but resist cutting off the green for several weeks until it is wilted and dying down.

Showy potted hydrangeas make a bold spring statement as do the potted azaleas forced into bright pink flower in time for the Easter market, but both species are not super hardy and likely will not make it through Pennsylvania winters, commercial growers said.

Shriver's advice regarding hyacinths and azaleas is spot on in my garden, but the walk way leading to the Loysburg house of Jeff and Deb Mellott tell a different tale.

Full disclosure, Jeff is my husband's brother.

Like beautiful soldiers standing at attention 11 hyacinths in colors from the deepest dark purple, a couple pink, a white and even a yellow and a salmon are showing off along the path.

"We haven't done anything to them," Deb said. "I just said to Jeff that we should dig them up this year, spread them out and put in some bone meal."

As the spring bulbs and low growing phlox brighten up the ground level of Morrisons Cove's landscape, the flowering ornamentals are creating eye catching vistas.

The hard freeze in March may have stunted some forsythia, but in most cases it's refusing to give in.

A forsythia hedge planted along the driveway thirty years ago is stepping up and putting on a show visible from afar off.

Star azaleas, something I can't grow, are a awash with their brilliant white blossoms.

Also putting on a white performance is the flowering pear, most likely the Bradford pear, a common variety Pennsylvania agriculture specialists are determined to eradicate. The Bradford has turned invasive, Wilson Martin said.

"They are still around, but they're trying to slow them down, said Martin, owner of Cedar Springs Nursery, three miles south of Bakers Summit.

A good replacement is the Chanticleer, a white flowering pear that does a better job of keeping to itself, Martin said.

Flowering cherry, coming in a multitude of varieties, wild and domestic, are blooming with the striking deep pink of the Red Bud around to burst into open and crabapples already providing color, Martin said.

The ever popular flowering dogwoods, be they white, pink or red, are eager to start sharing the landscape stage.

"We have a lot to look forward to over the next several weeks," Martin said.