Types of Flowers — Over 100 Popular and Unique Flowers (A Complete Guide)
I’ll start with something no guidebook ever mentions—you don’t need to know them all. My grandmother grew 40 different kinds of flowers in her yard in Shumen, and she didn’t know the Latin names for a single one of them. She called them “that purple one,” “the yellow one by the fence,” “the blue ones that snails hate.” They all bloomed. She died at 84 with the most beautiful garden on the street.
I’m saying this because people buy flower guides and then feel bad that they can’t remember the names. You don’t need to. You just need to get to know your flowers.
But anyway, let’s go over the types.
Roses first, because otherwise I’ll be mentioning them all the time.
There are hundreds of varieties, and if I try to list them all here, this will turn into an article just about roses. In short: hybrid tea roses are beautiful and finicky. Floribundas are easier to care for and bloom more profusely. Climbing roses—if you have a fence or a pergola—are perhaps the best investment in gardening, because after three years they become monumental and look like something out of an English magazine.
The Damask rose. That’s a story of its own. It grows in the Rose Valley; rose oil is made from it, and its scent is something modern varieties simply cannot replicate, no matter how hard they try. If you find such a bush—get it. It’s not for bouquets, it’s not for a show. It just smells wonderful.
Prune roses in early spring. Not in the fall. Sun, good soil, keep an eye out for aphids on the young shoots. That’s it.
Tulips are deceiving.
They seem simple—a bulb in the ground, you wait, they bloom. And that’s really how it is, except the bulb is planted in the fall. October. Not in the spring.
I planted them in the spring the first time. Then I waited. Then I waited some more. Nothing. My neighbor Tinka watched me from her window with an expression that made it clear she’d seen what I was doing and had decided not to interfere.
Tulips come in early, mid-season, and late varieties. If you plant all three groups, you’ll have blooms from March through May. Dig up the bulbs after the leaves die back, store them in a cool, dry place, and plant them back in the ground in the fall. Or you can leave them in the ground—after a few years, they’ll multiply on their own, though the flowers will get smaller.
“Queen of Night” is almost black. It looks unreal.
I’ll say just one thing about daffodils—mice don’t eat them. Unlike tulips, whose bulbs are a delicacy for every rodent within a 50-meter radius. Daffodils are poisonous, and mice know it.
You plant them in the fall, they bloom in early spring, you leave them in the ground for years, and they divide and multiply on their own. Their scent is strong and not for everyone. I love it. My wife doesn’t.
Lavender. Everyone wants lavender. Half of them kill it.
It hates wet soil. It loves dry, poor, loose soil—and neglect. If you water it regularly because it seems thirsty to you—it dies slowly and elegantly, without telling you why.
English lavender—Lavandula angustifolia—can withstand our winters. The French variety is prettier with those little “ears” on the buds, but frost kills it. It’s fine in Southern Bulgaria, but in the North—you’re taking a risk.
Prune it after flowering, cutting off the top third; don’t cut into the woody part. Otherwise, it won’t sprout new growth.
Now I’m going to skip over a lot of flowers and come back to them at the end, because I want to say something about annuals—they’re underrated.
Petunias are everywhere, and that’s exactly why people ignore them. In front of every store, on every balcony, in the planters of every apartment building. Boring, they say. But it blooms from May to November with almost no attention at all. You water it, fertilize it once a month with a blooming fertilizer, and it does its thing.
Cosmos. Slender stems, delicate flowers in pink and white, growing up to a meter and a half. You sow them directly outdoors. Then it self-seeds and comes up on its own the following year. It attracts butterflies and looks like it was painted with watercolors.
Nasturtium—both the flowers and the leaves are edible. It has a tangy flavor. It grows in poor soil—in rich soil, it produces leaves instead of flowers, which is the exact opposite of everything else. Sow directly; it doesn’t like being transplanted.
Nigella—“Love in the Mist.” Blue, delicate flowers surrounded by fine filaments. Sow in early spring, even with light frosts. It self-seeds afterward. Once you let it go in the garden—it’s there to stay.
Orchids. Here, people fall into two camps, and both are wrong in different ways.
One camp: “Orchids are for experts; I can’t do it.” Wrong. Phalaenopsis—the one with the flat flowers from the supermarket—is extremely hardy. More hardy than most houseplants.
The other camp: they buy it, water it twice a week, fertilize it, move it around, “take care” of it. Then it dies, and they’re surprised.
Phalaenopsis needs: a bright spot without direct sunlight, loose bark-based potting mix, watering only when the mix is completely dry, and almost no fertilizer. Leave it alone. Literally—leave it alone and don’t touch it.
Orchidaceae is a family with over 28,000 species. Cattleya, Dendrobium, Oncidium, Cymbidium—each with different needs, different origins, different care requirements. If you get seriously interested in orchids—it’s a bottomless rabbit hole.
Perennials are the one thing I regret not knowing about sooner.
You plant them once. Then they come back every year. Some spread. Some get more beautiful with age.
Hosta—huge leaves, shade. Its only enemy is the snail, and snails love it. If you have a dark, damp corner in your garden—the hosta is the answer.
Echinacea—cone-shaped pink-purple flowers with a prominent orange center. A medicinal plant. Bees find it somehow. It needs almost nothing.
Daylily—each flower lasts one day. The plant produces new ones for weeks on end. Indestructible. It spreads on its own. It comes in orange, yellow, red—almost every color.
Phlox—beautiful, but prone to powdery mildew if you plant it in a stuffy spot. Give it some air.
Foxglove—tall, with bell-shaped flowers along the stem. A biennial. Poisonous, but beautiful. It loves shade, which is rare for something so striking.
Catnip, Nepeta—cats roll around in it. Bees visit it constantly. It blooms for a long time. Cut it back by half after flowering, and it will bloom a second time.
Lily of the valley—white, delicate, in the spring. Its scent has been used in perfumes for centuries. It is poisonous in all its parts despite its appearance. It spreads underground, and once it does, it’s hard to stop. I have one in a corner and regard it with respect and a certain amount of suspicion.
Chrysanthemums deserve a paragraph simply because people underestimate them.
They bloom in the fall. October, November, even in the frost. While everything else in the garden is dying, the chrysanthemum is thriving. My grandmother had a white bush in front of her house, and every fall, no matter how cold it got, it was still there.
Pinching them back in early summer—cutting off the tips—makes them bloom more profusely later on.
The tropical varieties we grow in summer or as houseplants:
Bougainvillea—you’ve seen it in Greece climbing white walls. Here, it overwinters only in a very sheltered spot or indoors. The thing about it is that it blooms when stressed. A little drought, a little stress—and it bursts into bloom. Water it regularly and generously—it’ll just grow leaves.
Canna—huge leaves, bright flowers, grows quickly, and has a tropical look. The corm overwinters in the basement. Plant it after the last frost.
December Star—everyone buys it for Christmas, and kills it by New Year’s. It hates: drafts, direct heat, cold water, and being moved. Place it away from the radiator, water it with room-temperature water, and don’t move it. It can live for years.
I’ll finish with something that isn’t talked about enough.
Fragrant flowers are in a category of their own, and not every beautiful flower smells good. Jasmine—the real kind, Jasminum officinale—smells strongest at night. Plant it near a window. Winter jasmine—the yellow variety—blooms from December to February with almost no scent, but it’s the first flower after winter, and that’s enough.
Lilac—everyone knows lilacs, but few people know that if pruned at the wrong time, it won’t bloom all season. Prune only after it has bloomed. Never in the fall, never in the winter.
