Henry Homeyer: White flowering plants among spring favorites

By Henry Homeyer
© 2026 Telegraph Publishing LLC

I decided this year to do a better job of keeping track of what plants are blooming when, and photographing them. I encourage you to do the same We all forget what we have from time to time. And next winter we’ll be able to enjoy our gardens.

My favorites right now? Double bloodroot – they’re like miniature double white peonies. They have four strings of chromosomes instead of two, so they are sterile, and bloom for up to two weeks. Ordinary bloodroot only blooms until it is pollinated.

Then there is my new Merrill magnolia hybrid I planted last year. It replaces one that succumbed to a fungus after 21 years and always bloomed on my birthday in late April. This one opened its buds on May 2 with large double white blossoms. It’s fabulous!

We plant lots of bulbs each year. A recent addition to our crop of daffodils is one called Thalia, which I just love. It is one of the few that will thrive in soil that stays consistently moist. The stems are tall, the blossoms are nearly white with short cups. It seems many bulbs produce more than one blossom stem. It blooms in early May for me.

My favorite gardening centers are open for the year, and I’m visiting them all to see what might seduce me. I am always looking for new perennials but I try to hold off buying any until I know I have space for them. But that can be tough to do.

I start my own tomato plants from seed indoors, and some flowers, but have bought some vegetable starts. I just don’t have the time and space to start everything under lights.

If you are buying packs of cold hardy plants like Brussels sprouts, broccoli or kale, there is one key question to ask at this time of year: “Are these hardened off yet?” Seedlings raised in a greenhouse can get sun- and/or wind-burned in your garden if you plant them outdoors right away and they have not yet been hardened off.

To harden off young plants, it is best to start them off with just a few hours of morning sun, then some afternoon sun, and finally all day sun. When I harden off my tomatoes, I take a full week to do so. And it’s worth the wait, sunburned leaves will drop off and die. Your plants will recover, but they will lose a week or two of good growth.

May is the month for weeding. If you start off with a weed-free garden, you will have much less work later on, especially if you mulch well. Get the annual weeds before they develop big root systems. Get perennials like dandelions now, before their roots go deeper and are harder to pull. Moist soil makes weeding easier, so go out after a spring rain.

My favorite weeding tool is the CobraHead weeder. It is a single-tine tool that easily gets under a weed and allows you to loosen the soil and to pull up from under the weed while you tug from above. It is also great for teasing out long creeping roots.

For really deep rooted weeds like burdock, I use a garden fork to loosen the soil down a foot or more. I plunge it all the way in, then tip it back. I do that in 2 or more spots around the weed if it is huge. Then I pull s-l-o-w-l-y.

I use a similar technique for pulling invasive shrubs like multiflora rose, honeysuckles, barberry or buckthorn. Pulling them and getting all the roots is tough – the roots tend to break off. But if you are as determined as I am, a CobraHead is good for teasing out smaller broken sections of root.

Buckthorns are, arguably, the most difficult invasive to kill. Cutting them back will stimulate the roots to send out new shoots all around the tree. But you can kill buckthorn by double-girdling the trunk. Take a small pruning saw and cut through the bark all the way around the trunk. Don’t cut into the hardwood, just cut the bark. Then go 12 inches higher up, and do it again.

Girdling a buckthorn is a slow death: you are interrupting the flow of sugars from the leaves to the roots, which slowly starve to death. I have done this in winter, and the tree leafed out and seemed normal that spring and the next spring. The third spring it never leafed out – it was dead, and did not sent up any new sprouts around the tree.

Your last chore for now is to fix those dreaded bare spots in the lawn. Buy some new seed, if yours is more than a year old. Use your garden rake to loosen the soil, then top dress with some good compost and work it in. Sprinkle seed by hand – no need for one of those fancy walk-behind seed spreaders. Just fling it gently until it is evenly spread. Don’t be stingy.

Grass seeds need some sunlight to germinate. To cover the seeds a little bit, take a lawn rake and turn it upside down; drag the tines over the area being treated.

That will mix the seed in to the soil, but not bury it deeply. Finally you should pack down the seeds with a roller, or use a tamper. Or put down a wide board and walk on it. Make sure the soil doesn’t dry out after planting. I cover it with a very light layer of straw to help keep it from drying out.

Yes, spring is a busy time for us gardeners. But I love it: the colors, the smells – and even the hard work.