12 best shrubs for early spring

This is an easy-to-grow willow that bears adorable deep pink buds in late winter. Super for flower arrangements, and when it's time to replace them, just stick the cut stems in a pot of compost. They are VERY easy to propagate!

It's an easy-to-manage shrub that can be kept small and manageable with the odd judicious prune.

An exceptionally hardy evergreen shrub with gloriously showy flowers lasting for weeks through early spring. The glossy foliage is very handsome all year round.

This is like a different genus from the ubiquitous common lilacs we seen everywhere in spring! We love its very pretty scented lilac-pink flowers which emerge from deeper pink buds on the thin black stems - the effect is quite magical. It's hardy to H5, and slow-growing with a maximum height of 1.5m so it never gets out of hand either. No wonder it's an RHS Award of Garden Merit winner.

Daphne is one of the most fragrant shrubs in the world and this one has particularly large flowers pumping out one of the richest citrus-y scents of all. It's also one of the most long-flowering!

This versatile plant looks like the sun is on it all the time! Easy-to-grow, evergreen and always cheerful-looking, it has justly earned an RHS AGM. You don't grow it for the tiny flowers but for its bright foliage which takes on a pinkish tinge in winter.

This is the golden-leaved version of the well-known aromatic evergreen shrub known as Mexican orange blossom. Crush the leaves for a delicious sharp orange scent from this beautifully bright hardy evergreen bush.

This slightly prickly but compact evergreen shrub will grow to about 3m tall. From about December through to March it bravely throws out properly bright yellow, fragrant flowers, in densely clustered arching racemes, followed by blue-black berries.

It's pretty hardy (H5 - grows for Caroline north of Inverness), tolerates also soil types and can be grown in quite exposed spots

The pretty late winter blooms of this fabulous shrub belie its tough constitution.

Viburnum x bodnantense 'Charles Lamont' gives excellent winter colour with pretty pink, heavily scented flowers, borne on the bare stems from November to March. Cut some of these stems to enjoy in a vase indoors.

The dark pink blooms of this Viburnum will fade slowly to white with maturity. By autumn, the foliage of the plant transforms to vibrant shades of orange and yellow. Height: 3m (9.8'). Spread: 2m (6.5').

This spreading deciduous shrub will grow to about 2m tall and wide, with spiny branches bearing glossy dark green, oval leaves, and clusters of single, pure white flowers 4cm wide, along the bare branches before the leaves emerge in spring, followed by aromatic green-yellow fruit.

Best grown against a sunny wall, it was one of Louise's Great Plants for February, and you can read her review here. A really lovely early spring shrub.

This popular Pieris has the most fantastic glowing red new leaf shoots in spring! As gorgeous as flowers, they herald the arrival of white dangling panicles of lily-of the-valley type blooms. It's a fabulous large (up to 4m) evergreen and makes a real statement in a spring garden.