Tulips, daffodils and other spring-blooming bulb flowers don't have to be big to be beautiful. Small versions of our spring favorites are prized for their bewitching, jewellike blooms, and finding a place to plant them is easy. Now's the time.

Little bulbs have all kinds of advantages. They fit in small spaces -- in a corner by the patio, or next to the front steps. They're perfect tucked in around the trunk of a big shade tree, and they're naturally suited to the front edge of a flower bed, where you can't miss them. The bulbs that produce miniature tulips, daffodils, irises, grape hyacinths, crocuses and other spring flowers are themselves usually quite small, which means they're a snap to plant with a trowel. And they're almost always inexpensive, so you can indulge yourself: When you're planting 100 of anything, you naturally feel a bit extravagant, but these little bulbs will not put much stress on your budget. The reward of a few minutes' planting this fall will be a cheerful, personable display in spring. Miniature bulb flowers have outsized charm.

The parade of spring-flowering bulbs reaches its crescendo when tulips bloom in April or May, but the show actually begins in late winter, when there's still snow on the ground, as the first snowdrops push through. They can be hard to spot from the house, but they'll give you an excuse to bundle up to go outside and look for them. The moment you see their dangling, bell-like flowers -- pure or creamy white, with just a touch of green -- is a turning point in the winter garden.

After the snowdrops bloom, crocuses are not far behind. Pools of their small goblet-shaped flowers -- rich golden yellow, purple, rosy pink, white or boldly striped with purple -- sparkle like Champagne next to a garden bench or along the front walk. They're classic bulbs for planting in a lawn, tossed here and there like wildflowers. Plant several varieties, and you'll have a show that lasts for weeks. It's fine to dig a shallow hole only a few inches deep, toss a handful in, and then simply firm the soil over the top. If they're in a spot with excellent drainage and not too much moisture in the summertime, your planting will become more beautiful every year as the flowers go to seed and multiply. Crocuses are among the very first flowers to welcome honeybees searching for pollen on sunny days late in the winter.

Mail-order bulb specialists, who are busy filling orders right now for planting this fall, carry the broadest selection, but most garden shops in fall also stock their shelves with plenty of inspiration for spring gardens. Their bulb bins are likely to include a variety of grape hyacinths, which have striking, long-lasting clusters of bead-shaped blue flowers in midspring. Miniature irises and frilly scilla are also commonly available. Go ahead and experiment with several different small bulbs to get to know them up close and see how they perform in your garden.

Mini daffodils are perhaps the sweetest of all the tiny bulb flowers. The American Daffodil Society maintains a list of almost 250 officially recognized miniature varieties, but even the ADS struggles to define exactly what mini daffodils are. Colorblends, a mail-order bulb company, steps in with a definition of its own -- mini daffodils, Colorblends says, have "relatively small flowers on proportionately smaller plants, but all are very big in the cuteness category."

The definition works: mini daffodils, with flowers sometimes no bigger than a thimble, are just about as charming as they can be. Their flower stems may be only a few inches tall, but each bloom is a perfect scaled-down version of a larger daffodil. In the garden, they're irresistible in small groups of 10 to 12 bulbs, and delightful in drifts of 100. A bouquet of these winsome little treasures in a vase will take your breath away.

Mini daffodils even have cute names: Baby Boomer, Bagatelle, Bumble Bee, Minnow, Fairy Chimes, Little Oliver, and Itsy-Bitsy-Splitsy are just a few examples.

The tiny-flower season wouldn't be complete without the flash of glorious little tulips. Small tulip varieties mainly belong to a group known as wild or botanical tulips. Some, such as Turkestanica, are species flowers, with the unruly look of wild blooms in the high mountains of central Asia. Others are hybrids with star-shaped flowers -- a little more refined, but every bit as evocative of the wilds as the species. Botanical tulips naturalize easily in rock gardens and alongside stone edging or paths. They're perfect on a slope, where they're likely to spread by seed, and they're also pretty massed in front of clipped boxwood or yews, where they lend a jaunty informality to a more tailored planting.

Little bulbs truly are mighty performers in gardens of every size and style. They don't ask for much -- just a niche -- to prove that bigger isn't always better.

SOURCES

-- Three excellent mail-order sources for little bulbs are: Colorblends, colorblends.com; Brent and Becky's, brentandbeckysbulbs.com; and John Scheepers, johnscheepers.com.

SIDEBAR

Great Fall Shrubs

Here are some more favorite fall shrubs recommended by Eva Monheim, author of "Shrubs and Hedges" (Cool Springs Press, $30), and Judson LeCompte, product development manager at Proven Winners (provenwinners.com):

-- Witch hazel: Native witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana) blooms in midfall. The bright yellow ribbonlike flowers are especially decorative, sparkling amid the foliage as the leaves turn yellow and fall. Hybrid witch hazels are prized for their blazing fall foliage and late-winter blooms.

-- There are viburnums of all kinds and sizes, and many of them produce red or black berries in fall. Many also have spectacular fall foliage displays.

-- Groundsel bush (Baccharis halimifolia) has long-lasting, foamy clusters of creamy-white flowers in midfall.

-- Highbush blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum) produces the berries you find in grocery stores. This native American shrub makes a showy hedge and has brilliant red-to-orange fall foliage.

-- Oakleaf hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia) blooms in summer. The showy flower panicles fade to a tawny brown. In fall, the large leaves turn a bright burgundy. As the leaves fall, they reveal an attractive peeling bark.

-- Virginia sweetspire has bottlebrush white flowers in spring and deep dark red foliage in fall. (Itea virginica Scentlandia is a fragrant variety.)

Summer is slipping away, but there's plenty of life left in the garden. As the season changes, the spotlight shines even more brightly on shrubs.

Shrubs are a garden's middle layer: Beneath the tree canopy and above the free-for-all of flower beds, shrubs give the garden most of its structure and texture. They anchor beds in place, define edges and dramatically punctuate the garden's spaces. They add not only substance and character, but color. Shrubs work very hard for us without asking for a lot of pampering -- and they don't fade away, like a summer romance, when the calendar turns to fall.

"Fall is what I started with," says Eva Monheim, whose book, "Shrubs and Hedges," extols the virtues of her favorite plants. Monheim's list of top shrubs naturally includes spring- and summer-flowering choices such as roses, spireas and viburnums, but she's especially interested in the sparkling shrubs of autumn and winter, prized for their flowers, colorful fall foliage, bright berries and graceful structure. These are the shrubs that make a garden interesting all year round, she says.

The best shrubs have something nice to offer in several seasons, Monheim says. One of her favorites is red chokeberry (Aronia), which has white flowers in spring and, in fall, leaves that light up the garden like a bonfire, rivaling the color of maples. It also has beautiful berries. Some chokeberries are tall shrubs, but others will fit in even a tiny garden: A cultivar introduced by Proven Winners, called Low Scape Mound, only grows to about 2 feet tall and wide, "and it's the cutest thing you ever want to see," Monheim says. "It blankets the ground."

Low-growing shrubs have the advantage of being extremely versatile. They're great around the foundations of a house, where they never block the windows, and they fall neatly into line along a walk or around a patio.

Shrubs with bright berries are among the jewels of a fall garden. Aronia's berries can be brilliant red or shiny black, depending on the species. Beautyberry (Callicarpa) shrubs have long, arching stems covered in fall with clusters of rich purple berries that last for weeks. The eye-catching berries of hollies and viburnums show up from a distance but also draw you out into the garden to admire the display up close. And remember, when you grow shrubs with berries, you're not just adding an unexpected pop of color to the fall landscape; you're also planting a rich source of food for birds.

Judson LeCompte, a product development manager for Proven Winners, travels North America and much of the rest of the world looking for great shrubs for gardeners. Growing up in Alabama, he learned to appreciate the pleasure of fall gardens. "It was the only time you could go outside and not die," he says of the southern heat. "Fall is my favorite time of year." Beautyberry is one of his first choices among fall shrubs. "It's a no-nonsense plant," he says. "It does well across the country, it tolerates bad drainage and it thrives in heat."

Re-blooming shrubs may cause you to do a double-take in the fall garden. The Bloomerang series of re-blooming lilacs is particularly striking, with a bright fall flush of fragrant flowers that all but cover the mounded plants. Re-blooming azaleas light up the shade under trees with their flashy ruffled flowers. Shrub roses often put on a fresh and poignant display of fragrant blooms in fall, and the flowers tend to last a little longer in the cooler temperatures than they did in the heat of summer.

There's no need to wait until next year to give your garden a good jolt of color and life with shrubs that shine in the fall. This is a great season to plant, and, as gardening has surged in popularity this year, growers have put their efforts into increasing their inventory. Garden shops are well stocked with excellent choices. Planting now gives shrubs a chance to establish healthy roots in the soil before cold weather comes around. (Water well after planting.) You can expect to enjoy flashy foliage and, on flowering shrubs, fall blooms this year. Berry-producing shrubs are likely to be already loaded with fruit in their nursery pots.

Finding a great place for your new shrub is the easy part. A spot right along the front walk or on the edge of an often-used patio will let you get to know your new plant and will help you remember to water it once a week until the temperatures drop to freezing. Take a look at your flower beds and pick a shrub to fill in a gap or to create a new point of interest between perennials, even as they fade. Make a place for fall-performing shrubs in beds along the foundation of your house or just by the front door, to show your seasonal colors until the holidays at the end of the year grab the focus. After that, your new planting will just get better -- much better -- every year.

Gardeners can retreat to a cool spot indoors when the temperature soars. Plants have to stay put. Fortunately, a surprising variety of flowers not only tolerate the heat, but thrive in it. Summertime is their prime time.

To be sure, you can't neglect the care of plants during hot, dry spells, but heat-tolerant plants, whether in flower beds or in big pots, don't need coddling.

"Heat tolerance is a really important trait for us because we all know that consumers don't always know about plant care and watering," says Claire Josephson, product marketing manager for PanAmerican Seed, a plant-breeding company that introduced Wave petunias -- among other top performers -- to the American market. "We are trying to breed bulletproof plants," Josephson says, "and the more risk we can take out, the better."

This year is the 25th anniversary of the Wave series of petunias, known for their nonstop color, spreading habit and versatility in beds and containers. But Wave petunias are only one example of flowers that bloom happily through the steamy days of summer. Pentas, salvias, dianthus, impatiens, vinca, begonias and many others keep the garden looking lively in temperatures that can cause people to melt. While you move to a shady spot on the patio or enjoy your view of the garden from a window, bright summer flowers keep producing fresh blooms in the hottest sun, and butterflies float in on warm summer breezes to visit them, too.

"What's exciting to me is there are more heat-tolerant flowers all the time," says Justin Hancock, horticultural craftsman at the plant brand Monrovia, and a big fan of summer flower color. "You get certain types of color in the summer that you just don't see in spring," he says. Angelonia is one of Hancock's absolute favorites, for its deep colors, spikey form and fragrant flowers. "They smell like sugar cookies," he says.

Breeders are often looking over their shoulders when they work to solve gardeners' problems -- they find inspiration and opportunity in well-known and beloved plants of the past that just need a modern touch of color and a shot of vigor to appeal to new gardeners. The Lucky Star series of pentas is an example. Lucky Star is relatively new, and Josephson is excited about it for its continuous blooming habit, great colors, compact size and pollinator-friendly flowers. Each flower head is made up of hundreds of small blooms. Pentas make a big impression from a distance, and the many tiny flowers are also charming up close. Previous generations of pentas bloomed in cycles. With these plants, "you're never without color," Josephson says.

Old-fashioned vincas are back in style these days, too, Josephson says, in part thanks to PanAm's Tattoo series, which introduced a bold palette emphasizing fruit colors (tangerine, papaya, raspberry, black cherry). They have caught on with young gardeners and are now among the company's top sellers, she says.

Putting together great combinations of long-blooming plants is a specialty of the plant brand Proven Winners, which shares inspiration with gardeners in annual idea books featuring landscape ideas and combos for pots and hanging baskets. For consistent summer color when the weather is sizzling hot, lantanas are hard to beat, and Proven Winners combinations make the most of these tough plants. Verbenas, which start blooming in late spring and keep going through summer and into fall, are also easy, hard-working stars of container or flower-bed plantings, and favorites of PW designers. Verbenas and lantanas are both terrific butterfly plants.

Colorful foliage plants have a lot to contribute to summer gardens, too, says Penny Merritt-Price, research coordinator at Young's Plant Farm, a wholesale nursery in Auburn, Alabama. The plant farm maintains an All-America Selections test garden, and Merritt-Price is a judge, rating the performance of hundreds of plants every year, comparing new introductions and recommending top plants for AAS awards.

"Coleus are awesome," she says, and she's right: They're colorful, tough and versatile, and they don't need flowers to make a garden sparkle. "They really lighten up a space in the shade -- and they're great in blazing sun, too," Merritt-Price says. Breeders have introduced dozens of coleus varieties, dwarf and tall coleus, with interesting foliage shapes and intense colors from deep red to chartreuse.

Merritt-Price also likes sweet-potato vines as ground-cover or accent foliage plants. Her favorites are the compact Sweet Georgia Heart series and the Spotlight series of vines. Previous generations of sweet-potato vines were fast-growing plants that were inclined to take over a flower bed, flowerpot, or hanging basket. New varieties look lush and luxurious, but they're well-behaved companions and will not run rampant through your carefully designed planting combinations.

It's never too late in the season to pump up the color in your flower beds or pots with new plants, especially when there are so many great choices. Garden shops and the garden departments of big-box stores are committed to keeping their inventories up this summer, to meet increased demand as families spend more time at home. Hot-weather plants available now will have your garden soaring through the rest of the gardening season: They're hotter than a heat wave.

THE BASICS

-- You don't need advanced gardening skills to take care of summer flowers.

-- Encourage full-time bloom with a little fertilizer. Sprinkle slow-release fertilizer in flowerpots or around annuals in flower beds, or use with a water-soluble fertilizer every two weeks.

-- Water regularly. Poke a finger into the soil around your plants. If it feels dry, it's time to water.

SOURCES

Get to know new plants on the websites of breeders and propagators.

-- PanAm's breeders have introduced an astonishing variety of seed-grown bedding plants. panamseed.com

-- Monrovia's designers call annual flowers "the eye candy of the summer garden." monrovia.com

-- The Proven Winners brand emphasizes tough, beautiful plants, with plenty of offerings for hot-season heroes. Their newsletter and idea book are especially inspiring. provenwinners.com

-- All-America Selections works with breeders to test and promote new flowers and vegetable varieties. Many gardens in the AAS network of almost 200 test gardens across the country are open to the public. You can find a test garden and learn more about AAS winners, which have been recognized since 1932. all-americaselections.org