22 Spring Flower Arrangements That Put the Season's Best Blooms on Display

While flower lovers can enjoy a robust garden year round, spring is typically associated with the most floral activity. Dormant and patient after a long winter, bulbs suddenly shoot up from the earth, breaking into breathtaking color that makes for quite the show.

It makes sense, then, that we thoroughly enjoy snipping a few (or bunches of) spring blooms and placing them inside our homes: After a long, cold winter, what's better than bringing bright, beautiful blooms from the outdoors in? And with so many varieties to play with, creative, dynamic centerpieces are so often the fruits of our labor. Kevin Sharkey, the executive vice president and executive design director of the Martha Stewart brand, is a flower-arranging connoisseur; he loves working within the floral palette of the season. Take this compote, for example: When bright Icelandic poppies and tulips are in season, Kevin's sweet tooth guides his method. "Candy-colored blossoms resonate unlike any other for me," he says. "I can almost taste the blooms." He began building this array with tulips, filled it out with ebullient poppies, and then softened the mass with frothy mimosa.

Of course, these two varieties aren't your only choices—so many flowers, from daffodils and hyacinth to garden roses and even paperwhites (the winter-forward blooms last until the first few weeks of spring), can inspire your bounty. Looking for a few flower arranging ideas? Consider the centerpieces, ahead—they are perfect for a Mother's Day brunch or Easter get-together. You don't, however, need a holiday to bring your curations to life. Place a vessel or two on your mantel or dining room table and enjoy spring's invigorating florals and fragrances all season long.

You can purchase forced paperwhites—a form of narcissus that is closely related to daffodils—at local garden shops in the winter, but these plants are native early-spring bloomers. On the cusp of the season, place a few into a bark-inspired vase and top them with moss. It's the ultimate transitional arrangement. 

Who says you need masses of blooms to craft a statement-making centerpieces? Place citrus-hued poppies in similarly-hued bud vases to create a springtime vignette that will turn heads.

Jump-start spring by forcing branches of early-flowering trees and shrubs. Massed at eye level in a rustic trough, pink cherry blossoms join white dogwood and spirea to give armchair nature lovers a breath of fresh air. The branches stand in chicken wire that has been bent to fit the container's liner. Moss and lichen from a florist mask the wire support in sylvan style.

Stems of delphinium and larkspur in blue-violet tones form an arrangement that's at once subtle and opulent.

We gathered an armful of garden roses in a tight range of soft colors to form this arching dome, set in a 19th-century blown-glass compote. The stems were inserted one by one, steadied by a floral frog at the vase's base.

Hollowed-out eggshells make naturally beautiful vases for tiny flower arrangements. Break an egg at the top of its shell, drain the contents, and carefully rinse out the inside. Next, fill the empty shell with room-temperature water and place it in an eggcup for stability. Finally, insert small cuttings of your favorite blossoms (we used lilacs, lily of the valley, and violas). Individually or grouped together in a centerpiece, these tiny arrangements make a wonderful addition to the place settings at your table.

This oversize urn arrangement includes Kousa dogwood, mock orange, viburnum, mountain laurel, and garden roses. 

Tulips join their spring garden companions in a display by Tineke Geerlings, a Dutch floral arranger. 'Cairo,' 'Apricot Parrot,' 'Princess Unique,' 'Sensual Touch,' 'Teletubbie,' viburnum, apple blossoms, hosta leaves, and hellebores fill a vase by designer Hella Jongerius.

This lilac arrangement has height and visual drama with the help of a serving bowl from the kitchen or china cabinet.

For this delicately colored display, Kevin combined silky tulips; green snowball viburnums; large, single-petaled peonies; and the velvety foliage of scented geraniums.

This fishbowl garden has echeveria, aeonium, tree peonies, paphiopedilum, asparagus ferns, lotus pods, scabiosa seed heads, and pitcher plant flowers.

In this display, Kevin arranged large leaves from a variegated hosta plant—commonly found in gardens but not often used in arrangements—to build a strong foundation (as well as color palette) for tree peonies and lady's mantle.

Occasions such as Mother's Day call for the floral equivalent of a big hug. Candy colors, mixed textures, and varied sizes radiate homey spontaneity, especially when the "vase" is endearingly improvised from a flea-market find. A yellow teapot, with ample room for water below a narrow opening, becomes the perfect vessel for clasping a generous bunch of tulips, hyacinths, peonies, and, of course, forget-me-nots.

This arrangement features tulips, lisianthus, wax flowers, and ranunculus in similar colors. Four individual arrangements are nestled in Champagne flutes, a great, unique vessel for flowers.

Here, daffodils are arranged in a simple vase, which showcases the beauty of the blooms with their different-hued centers. Daffodils release a substance harmful to other flowers, though, so they are best kept to themselves in arrangements.

This low centerpiece features hydrangeas, dusty miller, sea thistle, roses, echinops, astrantia, mountain laurel, clematis, lady's mantle, and blueberries.

A European tulipiere was designed to display one tulip in each "finger." "I love to mix small fringed tulips with early viburnum and muscari in this vessel," says Martha.

Martha has a penchant for clear-glass containers such as this one, which shows off a wonderful mix of tulips, white bleeding hearts, and the wavy leaves of bird's-nest fern.

Mingle dainty Spanish bluebells with fluffy chive blossoms for textured arrangements.

The long-awaited drama of a cluster of hyacinths and daffodils pushing up from the earth doesn't quite carry over to a few paltry blooms in a vase. Imitate this spring ritual by rearranging several bouquets of same-color blossoms in clay and terra-cotta pots and urns.

Kevin placed a large cluster of solid and striped tulips in a vase, its gold stripes echoing, but not competing with, the flowers.