Top 10 Stunning (and Free!) Asheville Wildflowers

Do you remember those beautiful days in your childhood when you would pick a thoughtful bouquet for yourself or your mom? A bouquet of…..dandelions, or daisies, or forget-me-nots? Wildflowers are a beautiful thing. Untamed, sometimes forgotten and unnoticed, wildflowers in Asheville, NC, provide beauty in the forests and the fields. A kind of beauty that actually cannot be created in formal gardens. Here in Asheville, NC, we have wildflowers in abundance for you to discover on delightful mountain tops and in secret glens. Let us give you a taste here:

Bloodroot

This charming yet unassuming flower looks like a wide, short daisy with a fuzzy yellow center. Look closely under the pine trees in the local woods for these pristine delights. 

Dogwoods 

While yes, technically, dogwoods are trees (making them more than just wildflowers) they thrive in the beautiful "wilderness” along the Blue Ridge Parkway in spring. In April and May (the blooming season varies on the temperature of the winter season) you can be delighted by the perfect simplicity of these white, flat, four-petaled flowers. 

Grape Hyacinths 

These seemingly miniature hyacinths are truly miniature! Just about 4-6 inches high, these beautiful spring bloomers grow both in full sun and shade, so you have no idea where you might discover them. Sniff one, and you will see why they are called "grape” hyacinths (and you will long for some grape candy!). 

Magnolia

While these beautiful, flowering trees are cultivated all over the south, they also grow wild in our beautiful state of NC. 

Mountain Laurels (Rhododendron) 

Another stunning spring gem that you will see in profusion is the wild Mountain Laurel as it is called locally (or a rhododendron). This beautiful shrub, which for most of the year is a dark waxy green, bursts into brilliant shades of pink making the mountain side look as if coral is flourishing above water under the trees. 

Flox

This beautiful and vibrant creeper is getting harder and harder to see, trailing over the hillsides. If you are able to spot it, you are definitely having a lucky day! So let that smile shine that it paints on your face. 

Forget-me-Nots

Do you remember these sweet little flowers? The small violet (sometimes more bluish) flowers with the little yellow centers that you would give to your friends and then you would promise each other that you would never forget each other? Now we might step on them in our busy-ness. Instead, though, of doing that, give them to your children and remind them of how you will always love them to the moon and back! (Look for these charming little flowers on the moist banks of mountain streams or under low growing shrubs. 

Ruby Giant

In March, this jewel of a wildflower can be seen along the roadsides and surrounding mountain cabins. It’s downturned petals make this purplish pink flower look like a mountain maid from the 1800s in a flowing skirt. 

Queen Ann’s Lace

Do you remember these favored wildflowers from your childhood? How, if you could overcome the stiff and woody stalks you would gladly dance around with the beautiful, delicate, lacy blooms feeling like a princess (or a queen) yourself. Look for them again along hayfields in the heat of this summer and introduce your own little girls to this special childhood flower. 

Violets

We all know these flowers, from the fields of our own childhoods to the bedtime stories we read to our own children. Look for these sweet little flowers this summer to brighten up your day. Remember, they grow low to the ground, so you will have to keep a sharp lookout by your feet. 

We can’t wait to see you picking wildflowers with your kids this summer in Asheville, NC! Book your vacation with us now before the summer is over!