When it comes to choosing flowering plants, you have a lot of options: perennials that bloom for decades, flowering herbs that offer beauty and aromatics, long-stem annuals perfect for cutting, and more. It’s nice to have a mix of flowers in your garden, but sometimes you only have room for a few plants or don’t want to deal with the work of managing a large garden. If that’s the case, consider planting flowers that bloom all year.
While it’s difficult to find plants that send out flowers throughout the winter, you can find plants that bloom from spring through fall. Check out this list of flowers that bloom all year (or close to it).
African Violet
Hardiness zone: 11-12; often grown as a houseplant
Native range: East Africa
Light requirements: Bright and indirect
Water needs: Moderate; prefer consistently moist soil
Soil type: Light and well-draining
Often kept as a flowering houseplant, the African violet displays purple, pink, or white blooms throughout the entire year. Yes, they even flower in winter! If your plants aren’t flowering, make sure they’re receiving lots of light (a sunny kitchen windowsill is a great home) and their soil remains moist.
Anise Hyssop
Hardiness zone: 4-9
Native range: North America
Light requirements: Full sun to partial shade
Water needs: Moderately moist, can tolerate brief dry spells
Soil type: Well-draining
A popular plant in herb gardens and pollinator patches, anise hyssop produces green leaves and purple flower spikes that smell and taste like black licorice. They’re some of the best purple flowers for attracting pollinators—butterflies, bees, and other beneficial insects flock to their flowers to feed.
Anise hyssop forms large clumps, so it can crowd out other plants. However, it doesn’t become invasive. Try planting it amongst other perennial flowers like coneflower and pineapple sage.
Coreopsis
Hardiness zone: 4-9
Native range: North America
Light requirements: Full sun
Water needs: Low to moderate
Soil type: Well-draining; can tolerate rocky and poor soil
Coreopsis is a group of flowering plants native to North America. Although you can find handfuls of different species, most of these plants continue to produce flowers from spring through fall. Many varieties produce yellow or orange blooms that wave in the wind.
Coreopsis plants can tolerate poor soil and moderate drought, so they’re a great option for the forgetful gardener or one with a rocky patch. Plus, they don’t require regular fertilization to produce stunning displays of flowers.
Cosmos
Hardiness zone: 2-11
Native range: Northern South America, Southern North America
Light requirements: Full sun
Water needs: Moderate
Soil type: Well-draining
One of the easiest annual flowers to grow, cosmos are also a beautiful cutting flower. Their wispy stems and lacy foliage blend well with their delicate blooms. If you keep plants healthy and continue to remove dead flowers, the plants can continue to produce new blooms from early spring through fall.
Make sure to play around with the various cosmos varieties and colors. You can find both single and double petal flowers in colors including orange, pink and white striped, and peach.
Kalanchoe
Hardiness zone: 10-12
Native range: Madagascar
Light requirements: Full sun to partial shade
Water needs: Low
Soil type: Well-drained, loose
A type of flowering succulent, kalanchoe is often kept as a houseplant. Not only does the plant produce cute green leaves with scalloped edges, but it also displays beautiful flowers atop towering stems. The flowers rarely bloom in winter, but they remain on the plant for the majority of the year. The flowers come in colors including orange, yellow, pink, and red.
Lantana
Hardiness zone: 8-11
Native range: South America
Light requirements: Full sun
Water needs: Moderate
Soil type: Well-draining
No matter where you live, lantana is a long-bloomer. And if you happen to reside in an area without frost, you can add this plant to your list of flowers that bloom all year. In frost-free areas, lantana grows to a medium shrub, but it remains smaller in areas where it grows as an annual. It also grows great in large planters.
Million Bells
Credit Wiki Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Million_Bells_in_rot_und_gelb.JPG
Hardiness zone: 7-11
Native range: South America
Light requirements: Full sun to partial shade
Water needs: Moderate; prefers consistently moist soil
Soil type: Well-draining
Also known as calibrachoa or mini petunia, this annual flower produces trumpet-shaped flowers on trailing stems. Although these aren’t quite flowers that bloom all year, you can expect to enjoy the flowers from spring through the first frost. Deadheading old blooms encourages the plant to continue producing new flowers. Look out for colors including pink, peach, white, and purple.
Violet
Hardiness zone: 3-9
Native range: North America
Light requirements: Full sun to partial shade
Water needs: Moderate
Soil type: Well-draining
You can find hundreds of different types of violets, from the large pansies sold in nurseries to wild wood violets dotting your lawn. Some of these plants flower for a longer period than others, but most of them bloom for at least a third of the year. Make sure you pay attention to the violet species since some require more sun than others.
Pansies and many other types of violets are cold-hardy, so they continue to add color to your landscape in the late fall and winter. The seemingly delicate blooms can even withstand snow. However, they often become zapped by the combination of summer heat and sun.
Wax Begonia
Credit Wiki Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Begonia_semperflorens-cultorum.jpg
Hardiness zone: 9-11
Native range: South America
Light requirements: Full sun to partial shade
Water needs: Moderate
Soil type: Well-draining, high in organic matter
Due to their unique waxy foliage and long-lasting flowers, wax begonias are a popular choice for window boxes, porch planters, and garden beds. They come in shades of red and green, and the flowers range from yellow to pink to white. Although these plants grow as annuals in most of the United States, they’re covered with flowers from spring through fall.
Yarrow
Hardiness zone: 3-9
Native range: North America
Light requirements: Full sun to partial shade
Water needs: Moderate; can tolerate drought
Soil type: Well-draining; can tolerate rocky and nutrient-poor soil
A hardy perennial that can survive rocky soil, drought, and neglect, yarrow is a favorite of many gardeners. Its feathery foliage is beautiful, and its flowers bloom all summer and into early fall. Each stem is topped with an umbel of tiny flowers in shades of pink, yellow, peach, and white.
Yarrow slowly spreads as it grows, so you can use it to blanket the empty space in front of your house or add color to the empty spot in your garden bed. And if you find it expands more than you like, you can easily divide it in the spring or fall.
Send Flowers Year Round with The Bouqs Co.
No matter the time of year, we’ve got your flower needs covered. Looking for a romantic bouquet for Valentine’s Day? We have classic varieties of red flowers as well as modern pink and purple arrangements. Need a celebratory bouquet for a November birthday? Choose from cheerful, colorful arrangements and beautiful pastel hues.
Along with offering flowers all year long, we also make it easy for you to order. You can get next day flower delivery online and give a subscription for multiple months of bouquets. No matter what option you choose, expect beautiful and long-lasting flowers that will keep you smiling.
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