Types of Small Flowers

Small blooms are a premium in gardens where there is little space. Whether tall and pendulous or low-sitting and stout, tiny flowers are a welcome addition to provide detail, fragrance and interest to areas where large blooms can't thrive.

Often, small blooms are the perfect fillers for dead space in annual beds and often offer long blooming beauty throughout the growing season. Verbena, which has clusters of flowers on the end of stems, blooms in hues of orange, red, yellow, pink, white, purple and countless combinations of these colors. Nemophilia, or baby blue eyes, are tiny blue cups with white centers. With dark olive, clover-like leaves, the sunny yellow oxalis blooms are small but striking.

Demure perennial blooms, which delight year after year with their ever increasing bounty, can become a focal point of the seasonal garden as it graciously changes. Consider the flax, blooming in late spring with a vibrant show of paper thin, heavenly blue petals on strong, tall stalks. Dianthus, also known as pinks, have delightful star-like blooms with a cinnamon fragrance and come in many shades of purple, pink and white. Columbine, a cottage garden-style flower, appears to be two flowers stacked into one. The columbine grows on tall stalks ending in nodding blooms of rainbow shades.

Bulbs are often perennials, depending on the climate zone, and will provide early spring or late summer garden interest in a way few other flowering plants can. The crocus, tiny princess of the snow, pops through the last stages of winter's coat to form Easter egg colored cups that herald spring. The bright azure, irregular flowers of the squill blooming in large quantities across a field create an impact, although their blue veined blooms are petite. A perfect, elongated white bell is the gift of the snowdrop to early spring gardens. Heads nod downward from dark green stems in woodland areas protected by trees.

Mounds of pretty, flowering foliage hug the soil to form ground cover for the edges of beds and boarders as well as lining paths. Lily of the valley's perfect, tiny white bells are framed by large, shiny green leaves and lend a sweet fragrance to the garden. Bouncing bet, or soapwort, create tufts of pink, red and white blooms that will roll like waves over a rock wall or down a hill.

Many vine flowers are trumpet shaped, creating a bobbing affect when small flowers cluster and hang from climbing foliage. The cardinal vine, so named for a bloom color like its namesake bird, produces palm-like, deep green leaves that vibrate in color contrast to the blooms. No list of flowering vines is complete without the star-like, tiny flowered jasmine. Bright white, exotically scented blooms cover this beautiful climber.