Cold Weather Flowers

• Written by Holly Hughes on April 12, 2022

After the kaleidoscopic beauty of a summer garden, the thoughts of a cold and barren upcoming winter can fill a flower lover with a sense of despair. However, this doesn’t need to be the case. There are innumerable flowers that can enliven any kind of garden and withstand any harsh weather, even snow!

Here’s a look at just some of these amazing flowers and plants. Just be sure to your region’s USDA hardiness zone to ensure each flower can flourish in your garden during the colder winter months.

What are the best plants for a winter garden?

Before looking at specific plants that are best for cold weather, there’s a couple of factors to consider.

When choosing winter plants, it’s important to think of things like color schemes, fragrance, structure, flowering period, and even if plants produce fruits or berries for hungry wildlife during the colder months. As well as resilience, you also want vibrancy, texture, and structure to lift your garden out of the gray and cold and give it a wintry glory, no matter the weather.

With this in mind, here’s some of the best flowers and shrubs to grow in winter.

Bush that blooms in winter

Viburnum

An outdoor winter flowering plant that combines bold color with fragrance, structure, hardiness, and fruit production is the wonderful viburnum. This resilient shrub flowers beautifully in colder weather, producing masses of bright pink flowers that are heady with perfume on its bare woody stems. In the summer, you can enjoy seeing small, purple berries appear while in autumn its foliage transforms into a magnificent carpet of orange and yellow.

What flowers bloom in winter?

There are plenty of cold climate flowers that bloom bright and bold in cold weather. Winter-flowering pansies – known for their cheerful blooms and vibrant colors – are winter annuals that grow through most of the season in milder climates. Blossoming from autumn until mid-spring, these are resilient flowers that are perfect for beginners that can be grown either in flower beds or pots for a much-needed pop of color in the darker months.

While often associated with spring, daffodils can also bloom in the winter, popping their chirpy yellow heads above the ground even during snowfall. For best results for this flower, be sure to plant your bulbs a minimum of three weeks before the first frost to ensure the bulbs have enough time to establish a sturdy root foundation.

Flowers that bloom in snow

Not only are their flowers that manage to thrive in cold climates, there are even plants that can emerge in snow. Here are some of the most beautiful flowers that can flourish in a snow-dusted garden.

Snowdrops

Unsurprisingly, the aptly-titled snowdrop is a firm winter staple, bursting forth with its delicate, droopy buds while there is still snow on the ground. Its pearly flowers are a stunning complement to the cold season and are a lovely addition to rock gardens or borders, offering a gentle, festive touch.

Winter Aconite

A somewhat unknown winter flower that boldly grows through cold conditions is the glorious winter aconite. The best thing about this flower is its buttercup-yellow petals that provide a welcome reminder of the warmth and joy of summer sunshine.

Crocus

Another well-known winter flower is of course the cup-shaped crocus. If you prefer a more colorful bloom that is still delicate in shape and size, the crocus is a perfect choice. Blooming from winter through to early spring, these blossoms often push their way through snow to reveal their bright purple and yellow buds. Exactly what we all need in the depths of winter!

The best winter perennials

There are many winter perennials to choose from when selecting flowers for your winter garden. Here’s a short overview of some of the best.

Hellebores

From dark purples to delicate pinks, hellebores offer an array of delectable colors to choose for your winter garden. Also called the Lenten rose as it can flower around Lent, these delicate-seeming flowers grace most gardens in mid- to late- winter depending on your location. They are the perfect combination of beauty and resilience making them an ideal option for winter.

Black Tulips

To create a garden that embraces the shorter, darker days of winter, consider planting black tulips. Moody and dramatic, these perennials are well able to survive colder climates, providing a sense of drama and magic to your garden from late winter right into early springtime.

And don’t forget that finding beautiful winter flowers doesn’t just extend to your garden but is something you can bring indoors to your cozy home as well. With a customized, year-round subscription service, you can have wondrously wintery and seasonal blooms delivered straight to your door to add some comforting cheer to your interiors throughout the colder months.

Check out the fresh and creative offerings from masterful specialists such as BloomsyBox, EnjoyFlowers, and MonthlyClubs for weekly or monthly arrangements that will bring the best cold weather flowers together in a sumptuous bouquet.

Or, for a once-off delivery option to ward away the winter blues or cheer up a loved one suffering from the season’s inevitable coughs, colds, and flus, check out the vast array of options available from services such as 1800Flowers, SendFlowers, or FromYouFlowers.

Who says you can only have magnificent flowers in summer?