17 Spring Flowers for Australian Gardens  | Ultimate Backyard (2024)

Spring is the time when our gardens fill with colour as many of our plants burst into bloom.

If you’re like me and absolutely love a garden filled with colourful blooms to herald in the end of winter, then I’ve got some suggestions for gorgeous spring flowers you might want to grow.

Anemones

If you love daisy-like flowers, then consider adding some colourful anemones to your garden. They grow from bulbs and these should be planted in autumn.

Aquilegia

Commonly known as granny’s bonnets, aquilegia have the most amazing flowers with many of them having more than one colour. These plants are perennials so once you’ve planted one, it will bloom again every spring.

Azaleas

Spring is the season when your azaleas will burst into colour. If you have a few of these planted in your garden, you’ll be in for a treat once they develop their lovely flowers.

Some of you might be lucky and get a second burst of colour in autumn from your azaleas but spring is the most prominent flowering season for these lovely plants.

Bearded Iris

I fell in love with the stunning blooms of the bearded iris that will appear in spring. These plants grow from tubers but they can be a bit touchy to get them to bloom.

Their tubers need to be close to the surface of the soil so that the sun can warm them up. It’s also important that they’re grown in full sun, otherwise, they may not bloom.\

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Cosmos

There’s something quite intriguing about cosmos flowers as they sway in the breeze on their long and slender stems. Although they look quite delicate, they’re actually easy to grow from seeds.

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Daffodils

Every year, I get excited when my daffodils start to shoot up with their green foliage from their underground bulbs. It’s then a case of waiting eagerly to see how many of the happy yellow flowers I’m going to get.

RELATED: What Should You Do with Daffodils After They Flower?

Lavender

Lavenders may start to flower in late winter but they’ll continue their stunning display right through spring as well. Some lavender varieties will even continue to bloom through summer and into autumn, especially if you deadhead them regularly.

Poached Egg Flowers (Limnanthes douglasii)

For something a little different, the poached egg flowers are quite stunning. They have cup-shaped blooms with petals that are yellow in the centre and white around the edges.

These flowers are annuals and you can easily grow them from seeds.

Ranunculus

Ranunculus grow from underground corms, much like the spring flowering bulbs that we like to grow. These are available in a range of different colours and are always a welcome sight in spring.

Rudbeckias

Commonly known as Black-eyed Susan, these flowers will brighten up any sunny spot in your garden. Their flowers are a combination of golden yellow and rust or copper with an almost black centre.

Snapdragons

These are another of my favourite spring blooms and are often available from places like Bunnings as ‘pots of colour’. They come in a whole range of different spring flower colours and will brighten up any spot in your garden.

Statice

Statice comes in a wide range of colours that you can mix and match in your garden. Not only do the flowers last a long time on the plant, but they also make excellent cut flowers and can be dried.

Sunflowers

Who doesn’t love the happy face of a sunflower? You can grow these from seed and they will add some glorious spring colour to your garden.

Tulips

For southern gardeners, tulips will start to bloom in early spring as long as the bulbs were planted in autumn and received enough cold over winter.

Wattles

Many wattles will actually start flowering in winter but their colourful display will carry on into spring.

I always get excited when I see the wattles start to bloom in bushland areas where I live because it means that we’re heading toward the end of winter.

Wisteria

There’s nothing quite as pretty as a garden arch adorned with the gorgeous purple blooms of the wisteria. They’ll delight you with their display during spring and the ground underneath will be covered with the purple petals as they drop from the vine.

Zinnias

Zinnia blooms have the most gorgeous symmetrical flower heads in a whole range of different colours. These plants are annuals and can be grown from seeds.

You can even think about saving some seeds to grow the following year.

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