Spring Gardening Nursery in Utah

How do you know when to start your seeds for spring? You’ll need your area’s average last frost date and your seeds’ germination time. Then add two weeks of growth before transplanting it to your garden.

This is easily explained by this equation:

Cost-effective veggies like tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant are typically started indoors in mid to late February. Then they’re transplanted outside in late April or May.

Broccoli and cabbage can be started indoors in late February and transplanted in early to mid-April. But if you’d like to start earlier, row covers can protect these from light frost and extend your planting window earlier than intended.

You can direct sow peas, carrots, radishes, beans, corn, cucumbers, and squash outdoors as these plants will germinate during cooler weather conditions. If you’ve missed the direct sowing window, you can always plant veggie starts to get your garden growing a little more quickly. We offer both seeds and veggie starts here at the nursery.

It depends on two things: your last frost date and the type of crop you’ll plant. Cool-season crops such as peas and spinach can go in the ground as early as mid-March. Warm-season veggies like tomatoes and peppers, on the other hand, need to wait until mid-May for warmer soil.

We do have a full breakdown of this topic. See our dedicated guide for more info: Spring Vegetable Planting Guide

While we’re on the topic, your last frost date varies depending on your elevation, slope, and proximity to urban areas.

These can all shift your planting window by days or even weeks. The best thing you can do while waiting is to prep the soil by working compost into your garden beds. There are many benefits to adding composted organic matter into your veggie or flower beds.

• Improved nutrient accessibility,
• Better drainage (to prevent sitting water)
• Helps to retain moisture in the soil
• Helps repair soil structure

You can also introduce soil amendments, such as Harvest Supreme, which are designed specifically to help increase your vegetable yield, along with adding nutrient density to depleted soil.

After five generations of starting, growing, and selling plants in the Salt Lake Valley, the team at Glover Nursery are experts in knowing which plants will perform best in Utah.

Spring is an ideal time to get your planned trees, conifers, and shrubs in the ground, in addition to cool-season veggie crops to get the first harvest of cole crops before the season heats up.

And while there are hundreds of options we can recommend in every category of plant, for the sake of this page, below are a few highlights for each category:

Spring is one of the best times to plant trees in Utah. The main reason is, the incredible selection of inventory that is available in spring cannot be matched during other times of the year.

There are other benefits such as the cooler temperatures, which make it easier to work outside, and the cooler weather also helps reduce the potential for transplant shock in your plants.

In general, there tends to be a bit more moisture in soils, which can make it easier to dig. And, while it does take a few years for trees to properly establish root systems, 3 years is common for most varieties.

By planting in early spring, trees will start to set new roots ahead of a hot summer, which will help them to take up more water during the hotter months of the year. Though you will need to follow recommended watering protocols to properly establish the root system for the long-term health of the plant. See our watering recommendations here.

All that being said, 3 favorite trees for planting in early spring are: Crabapples, Redbuds, and Magnolias. The main reason for these being favorites is that if you plant them before they break dormancy, you will get to enjoy their fabulous flowers in your own landscape!

All three varieties do well in Utah, though you will want to check your water type before planting, as high salt content from some secondary water sources can impact the success of Redbuds and Magnolias.

• Crabapples are one of the most reliable and hardy spring-flowering trees you can find in the Wasatch Front. In addition to being low maintenance, Crabapples can tolerate alkaline soil, clay soil, hot sun, and even drought conditions, once established.
  There are varieties that do not produce fruit as well as varieties that do produce fruit, wide varieties of which are persistent (meaning the fruit does not fall off the tree when it is ripe, it just hangs on until the birds gobble the fruit down, which they will).
• Another favorite is Redbuds. Though they do not like high alkalinity, they are a great option for those who love to add season-long color to their landscape.
  Redbuds start the growing season covered in bright pink flowers, and when the weather warms a bit more, they push out leaves that are giant, heart-shaped, and filled with color. From deep burgundy to bright lime, there are dozens of beautiful varieties that come in all shapes and sizes.
  These can be a small accent tree for dramatic color, or larger shade trees that can be an anchor to build a color palette from in a landscape design.
  
• The third recommendation, Magnolias, surprises a lot of gardeners in Utah. While traditionally thought of as a southern staple, there are many varieties of Magnolias that thrive here in Northern Utah.

In fact, we have 3 Magnolias in our display garden that have been growing and blooming for about 10 years:

• Galaxy Magnolia, a tulip and saucer hybrid.
• Edith Bogue, a cold-tolerant, Southern variety that gets massive white blooms in Summer.
• Star magnolia, a shrub form covered in small, white, star-shaped flowers when it blooms.

Come by and see the Magnolias in our West Jordan nursery to get a feel for how they will look in your yard.

Cool-season vegetables, called cole-crops (or commonly known as ‘cold crops’), are the stars of your early spring garden.

Veggies like peas, spinach, broccoli, cabbage, onions, and radishes can all go in well before the last frost and actually prefer the cooler conditions of early spring. Lettuce, carrots, and beets then follow shortly after as temperatures stabilise.

Additionally, getting potatoes planted in the cool weather is going to get you a head start on a delicious harvest. If you’ve never grown potatoes before, it is well worth a try – they are absolutely delicious in a way that store-bought potatoes cannot match!Once frost risk has genuinely passed, warm-season favorites like tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, beans, and summer squash take centre stage.

Perennials are one of the most popular options for adding color and texture to a Utah garden. Plant them once, and they come back year after year, filling out beds and adding reliable color without starting from scratch each season.

That being said, spring is a wonderful time to add perennials to your garden beds. In general, the selection will be at its peak of both blooming and non-blooming plants, so you can get those plants completed ahead of the hot summer days.

With mild temperatures, the soil tends to hold more moisture between irrigations, which helps support those new roots and gives them time to establish for better uptake of water before summer heat arrives.

Some of the most popular spring-blooming perennials are:

1. Columbine (Aquilegia): A favorite choice for many Utah gardens, Columbine comes in a variety of colors that start to bloom in early spring until the heat of summer begins. The foliage is very similar in shape to clover, giving a pretty texture to the garden when the flowers are done for the season.
2. Creeping Phlox (Phlox subulata): Ideal as a groundcover, providing large swaths of pink, white, or purple color early in the season. Creeping phlox maintains a green foliage throughout the rest of the year, ideal for contrasting summer bloomers.
3. Dianthus (commonly known as ‘Pinks’): Bright pops of color with structured foliage with blooms in red, pink, purple and white.
4. Basket of Gold (Aurinia saxatilis): Features vibrant yellow flowers, perfect for rock gardens.
5. Pasque Flower (Pulsatilla vulgaris): One of the earliest to bloom, often appearing in early spring, the flowers are big and vibrant against a soft, silver-haired foliage. Purple is the most common color of the pasque flower, but they can be found with red or white blooms. These make a great choice for water-wise gardens.
6. Bleeding Heart (Dicentra spectabilis): Thrives in partial shade, offering elegant, drooping flowers in the shape of, you guessed it, bleeding hearts.
   The blooms of the bleeding heart last while temps stay below 80-ish degrees and will start to fade once summer heat kicks in. The flowers bloom in a long line against the stem and come in white, pink and red variations.
7. Iris: Bearded irises are particularly popular for their hardiness and dramatic spring color.
   While they do have a short bloom season, their blooms are show-stoppingly spectacular.
   These come in every color of the rainbow, and some have 2 or 3 colors on a bloom. They even come in black, which is an incredibly rare find in florals.
8. Coral Bells (Heuchera): The foliage is why you would add Heuchera to a garden bed. From lime green to dark burgundy, these beauties have a ruffled leaf that is very nearly a flower. Though they do not thrive in full sun, a little dappled shade in the afternoon will keep these vibrant hues going strong all season long.
9. Rock Cress (Aubrieta): Low-growing groundcover that offers a thick blanket of flowers in a variety of purples and blues.
10. Peonies are also an incredibly reliable performer. Easy to grow, easy to maintain, can handle nearly any condition in the garden, and still produce incredible, luxurious blooms in late spring.
    These powerhouse perennials have been known to live for over a century; some have even inherited them in wills due to their beauty, longevity, and value. They transplant well and require very little attention once established.
    The most popular type of Peonie is Itoh, which has been cross-bred from herbaceous and tree peonies to have strong stalks that can hold up enormous flowers without breaking.
    Herbaceous peonies are the second most popular, only because they are easier to find. Tree peonies are notoriously difficult to find, but are worth the hunt for the incredible structure and flowers they offer.

When it comes to planting perennials in Utah, we recommend coming to your local garden center a few times throughout the growing season so you can pick up perennials that have different blooming timeframes. By doing so, you will have color in your landscape throughout the year.