The Best Spring Flowering Trees for Your Yard

Colorful spring blossoms feel like a gift after a long winter, and there’s no better way to create a show stopping flower feature in your yard than with a flowering tree. A single tree can produce hundreds of delicate flowers each spring, making them a favorite of landscapers and homeowners alike.

We’ve put together a list of some of our favorite spring flowering trees we’ve used in designs across North America. If you pay attention to their hardiness zone and ideal sunlight conditions, you’ll find the trees that will thrive in your yard.

Cherry Trees

There’s no pink flowering spring tree more famous than the cherry tree! Tourists come from around the world to see Japan’s sakura trees with pink flowers in the spring. Today, there are hundreds of cherry tree varieties with different color blooms and suited to different climates. While they usually flower in early spring, many varieties maintain their beauty in the fall with colorful autumn leaves.

Okame Cherry Tree

If you’re looking for a vibrant and showy cherry tree, look no further! The Okame is an early spring blooming cherry tree, filling out with bright pink flowers before leaves even appear on its branches.

Ideal conditions: Full sun to partial shade, hardiness zones 5-9

Yoshino Cherry Tree

The Yoshino is another early spring flowering tree which produces beautiful white or pale pink blooms with a lovely aroma. This sturdy hybrid is fast growing and adaptable, making it a landscaper favorite.

Ideal conditions: Full sun to partial shade, hardiness zones 5-8

Kwanzan Flowering Cherry

The Kwanzan cherry is unbeatable when it comes to flower production! It produces bold clusters of long-lasting pink flowers each spring, making it a perfect focal point tree.

Ideal conditions: Full sun, hardiness zones 4-8

Weeping Cherry Tree

Weeping cherries combine the delicate blossoms of a classic cherry tree with the dramatic sweeping boughs of a weeping willow. There are varieties with white and pink flowers and even dwarf varieties for small spaces.

Ideal conditions: Full sun, hardiness zones 5-8

Snow Fountain Cherry Tree

If you’re looking for a dramatic early spring white flowering tree, the Snow Fountain is a wonderful pick. This smaller variety of the weeping cherry is hardy and more heat tolerant than its larger cousin.

Ideal conditions: Full sun, hardiness zones 5-9

Magnolias

Magnolias are beloved for their large statement blooms in a range of pink and white hues. While you may be more familiar with them as a large shrub, you can encourage magnolias to grow into a tree shape by trimming back lower stems and encouraging growth along a center trunk. Whichever look you prefer, both magnolia shrubs and trees will provide a bounty of bold spring flowers.

Star Magnolia

The star magnolia sets itself apart from other white flowering spring trees with its unique starburst blooms. They open earlier in the spring than many other magnolias, making it an ideal choice if you’re looking for March and April flowers.

Ideal conditions: Full sun to partial shade, hardiness zones 4-9

Saucer Magnolia

This spring-flowering tree produces the flowers that magnolias are known for—large, impressive pinky purple blossoms. Different cultivars of this magnolia come in a range of shades from pale pinks to vibrant magentas and purples.

Ideal conditions: Full sun to partial shade, hardiness zones 4-9

Flowering Plum Trees

This family of trees are a true triple threat thanks to their delicate blossoms, vibrant leaves, and edible fruit. These compact trees erupt with pink or white blooms each spring and retain bright red to purple foliage into the autumn when they produce a bounty of small cherry plums.

Ideal conditions: Full sun to partial shade, hardiness zones 3-9 (depending on the variety)

Lilac Trees

Lilacs are an enduring favorite flower shrub beloved for their fragrant blooms, but some varieties grow as a beautiful statement tree with a little seasonal pruning. They also bloom later than most lilacs from the late spring into the early summer. The most common variety is the white blooming Japanese lilac tree, but you can find varieties in a range of white, pink, and purple hues.

Ideal conditions: Full sun, hardiness zones 3-7

American Fringe Trees

If you’re looking for a tree with white flowers in spring, look no further than this beautiful native species. Also called the white fringe tree, it features lacy white blossoms mid-spring which produce a bounty of berries that local wildlife love to feed on. It’s tough and low maintenance (like many native plants) and finds itself at home across most of the continental U.S.

Ideal conditions: Full sun to partial shade, hardiness zones 3-9

Redbud Trees

Redbud trees are another spectacular and hardy native tree in North America. They are one of the most vibrant spring flowering trees, with their bold pink flowers standing out in a sea of spring pastels. Newer redbud cultivars offer more bloom and foliage colors.

Eastern Redbud

This is the most classic redbud tree, recognizable for its punchy fuschia flowers. The eastern redbud also has heart-shaped leaves which are bronze in the spring, green in the summer, and golden yellow in the autumn.

Ideal conditions: Full sun to partial shade, hardiness zones 4-9

Forest Pansy Redbud

In addition to vibrant pinky purple flowers, the Forest Pansy is awash in color all season long with intense dark purple leaves. This tree is a true three season statement piece!

Ideal conditions: Full sun to partial shade, hardiness zones 5-9

Heart of Gold Redbud

The Heart of Gold begins the season with petite lavender flowers, but it’s actually the tree’s leaves that give it its name. The leaves emerge a fiery orange red and fade into a vibrant golden green hue that stands as a fluorescent statement all season long.

Ideal conditions: Full sun to partial shade, hardiness zones 5-9

Weeping Redbud

Weeping Redbuds have all the beautiful color of traditional redbuds with a gentle, draping profile. Different varieties have lavender and pink blooms, but all of them have a delicate sensibility that lends itself to cottage gardening.

Ideal conditions: Full sun to partial shade, hardiness zones 5-9

Dogwood Trees

Dogwoods are a group of native plants that includes shrubs and majestic soaring trees—but all of them are known for their flowers. Ranging from soft white to saturated reds, dogwood blooms add an elegant splash of color to any landscape. Dogwoods do tend to have higher water needs and can thrive near a body of water, but are poorly suited to arid landscapes.

Pagoda Dogwood

Pagoda dogwoods have tiny, lacy white flowers, but it’s the tree’s structure that makes this variety stand out. Wide tiered growth creates an effect much like the multi-leveled rooves of pagodas—and adds a statuesque highlight to any garden.

Ideal conditions: Full sun to partial shade, hardiness zones 3-7

Flowering Dogwood

These traditional dogwoods are beautiful tall flowering trees in spring. They have a classic four petaled flower that typically comes in white or pink and produces red, raspberry-like fruit in the fall.

Ideal conditions: Partial shade, hardiness zones 5-8

Serviceberry Trees

Serviceberry trees and shrubs go by a number of names including shadbush, shadblow, and shadwood. They’re a native plant that ranges across North America with delicate flowers, edible fruits, and beautiful fall foliage.

Common Serviceberry

Also known as Alabama serviceberry and downy serviceberry, Amelanchier arborea is native to eastern North America. It produces clustered white flowers and large fruits.

Ideal conditions: Full sun to partial shade, hardiness zones 5-9

Saskatoon Serviceberry

Also called the alder-leaved serviceberry, Amelanchier alnifolia flourishes in western North America. This tree has delicate white flowers and is unique in how cold-hardy some of its varieties are.

Ideal conditions: Full sun to partial shade, hardiness zones 1-9 (depending on the variety)

Jacaranda Trees

If you live in a warm climate and are looking for a tree with purple flowers in the spring, look no further than the jacaranda. They grow rapidly in tropical conditions, producing bold purple blooms and soft, fern-like leaves. They thrive in tropical areas like Florida and nurturing them to maturity will reward growers with beautiful purple flowering trees.

Ideal conditions: Full sun, hardiness zones 10-11

Tabebuia Trees

These vibrant trees (sometimes called trumpet trees) are known for their distinctive bright yellow flowers, but they can also come in a stunning array of pink and purple hues. Another tropical import, tabebuias can survive outdoors in the warmest of climates or as a potted patio plant to be brought indoors on chilly nights in more temperate regions.

Ideal conditions: Full sun, hardiness zones 10-11 (or 4-11 as a patio plant)

Hawthorn Trees

Hawthorn trees and shrubs are ornamental white or pink flowering plants that bloom in late spring and are perfect for any small space in your garden. They are notoriously susceptible to diseases like hawthorn rust and fire blight, but nowadays there are many resistant cultivars that will remain healthy and beautiful for years to come.

Ideal conditions: Full sun, hardiness zones 4-9 (depending on the variety)

Crabapple Trees

Flowering crabapples are small trees that produce fragrant white or pink blossoms late each spring and then deliver a bounty of small, tart apples each fall. They appreciate careful pruning and upkeep, but they provide beauty and edible fruits in return.

Ideal conditions: Full sun, hardiness zones 4-8

Catalpa Trees

Commonly known as northern catalpa, hardy catalpa, western catalpa, cigar tree, catawba-tree, or bois chavanon, Catalpa speciosa is a fast growing, majestic tree. It produces fragrant white flowers late in the spring and has striking heart-shaped leaves and dangling seed pods for the rest of the season.

Ideal conditions: Full sun to partial shade, hardiness zones 4-8

Buckeye and Horse Chestnut Trees

The Aesculus genus includes several different shrubs and trees including buckeyes and horse chestnuts. They produce showy clusters of blooms each spring in white, pink, yellow, or red, and most varieties have dense, lush foliage.
Ideal conditions: Full sun to partial shade, hardiness zones 3-8 (depending on the variety)

What are your favorite spring flowering trees?