If you’re looking to get a head start on bright spring color, the time is now! We have multiple options for semi-hardy annual color that you can get started now and have ready in full bloom by the start of March.

Sweet Pea’s can be seeded indoors now, or we have jumbo packs available for sale here at the nursery. They are fast growing and come in a wide variety of beautiful vibrant colors and are very fragrant! Sweet Pea’s work great as cut flowers and can be turned into beautiful bouquets. They are a wonderful season starter because they are so quick to grow and bloom.

If you plant your Sweet Pea seeds or starts now and then follow them up by planting Morning Glory seeds mid march, you could have continuous color through October! The Sweet Pea’s would be dying back right about when the Morning Glories would be coming into bloom. They both will quickly crawl up a net or trellis to provide a gorgeous backsplash of color to any patio or landscape.

The only thing watch out for with Sweet Pea’s is that, as their name suggests, mimic the garden vegetable pea. The flowers and the seed pods look almost identical to the vegetable peas that can also be grown this time of year to produce tasty peas for your kitchen. The problem is, Sweet Pea’s are NOT EDIBLE, they are in fact slightly poisonous (NOT ENOUGH TO KILL YOU, BUT MAY MAKE YOU SICK). The seed pods of sweet peas look like “pea pods” so make sure to separate Sweet Peas into an area away from the garden so as to avoid confusion. There are varieties of Sweet Pea’s that grow wild and tend be invasive (the bright pink ones all over the sides of the highways), the ornamental Sweet Pea is part of that family (Lathyrus), while the vegetable pea is in a different family altogether (Pistia).

Stop by the nursery today for a wide variety of Sweet Pea seeds and starts! We also have other options for early spring color that are available and blooming now!

If you forgot to plant your bulbs last fall we have tulips, daffodils, and other varieties available in containers that are going into bloom now.

Most people think of winter in the Willamette Valley as wet, cold and dreary… and did I mention wet? Good news is, we here at Johnson Brothers have a variety of hardy options for winter color that will bloom and provide interest all throughout the damp winter months lasting until spring.

Of course, we have all the classic options such as winter pansies and violas, which provide cute pops of color and a bold fragrance along with ornamental cabbage and kales that promise striking interest with hues of greens, purples and whites.

Aside from the traditional, we also have many other options for winter color that most people don’t think of, that can really set your landscape apart from the rest.

We have a fresh stock of both winter and spring blooming Camellias. These hardy evergreen shrubs bring color in a big way, with dark glossy foliage and big bright blooms.

Hellebores, are often an over-looked gem. These compact evergreen perennials set off their blooms around Christmas and last into the spring. They come in a variety of colors ranging from whites and pinks to deep violets.

Sarcococca is another forgotten treasure, these also evergreen, hardy shade tolerant shrubs thrive here in the Willamette Valley. These little beauties put on tons of small, white, incredibly fragrant blooms from January into early spring.

For more interest to tuck between your winter blooming shrubs we love Heuchera, a small mounding evergreen perennial that comes in a variety of colors from lime greens to oranges and even burgundies. They provide excellent winter color and year round accent in any landscape. Wintergreen is another favorite, an excellent evergreen ground cover that puts on vibrant red berries and, true to it’s name, puts off the scent of winter-green gum.

This weekend, Sept. 26th-28th, we are having our Fall Planting Event here at the nursery. We’ll have weekend only specials along with our “Cash for Plant Clunkers” event going on. Cash for Clunkers means you can bring in cuttings of your dead plants and get a voucher good for $5 towards a replacement tree or shrub. A few of these fabulous winter bloomers fall into that category, so grab your old dead plants, your Brother Bucks, and head on out to see us this weekend for big savings at our Fall Planting Event.

Tag Archives: color

Early Spring Color Starts Now!

Winter color…ya we’ve got that!

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