Jilliebean,
I am in SC zone 8, but I will tell you what is blooming for me, or has been blooming for the past couple of weeks.
Verbena, blooms all summer
Gerber Daisies- all summer very easy to care for
Iris- Extremely easy, just water in hot weather when dry, my Iris bloom in Spring, then again fall when everything else is done.
Spyria- I have foundation plants, the bigger variety, blooms like crazy in early spring, just ending their first bloom now.
Panises- still blooming, reseeds in hot weather, blooms all winter, can't beat them! (LOL they are sooo easy)
Daffodils- done blooming by now, but I love them in March.
Cheap at all stores, reliable to bloom.
Good luck with your garden this year, be careful, it's addictive. LOL

thank you

These might work for you:

Anemone
Artemisia
Baptisia
Bleeding Heart
Blue-eyed Grass
Buttercup
Candytuft
Columbine
Coreopsis
Coral Bells
Crocus
Dianthus
Dwarf Iris
Grape Hyacinth
Hyacinth
Heucherella
Iris
Johnny-jump-up
Pansies
Phlox
-divaricata,
-stolonifera,
-subulata
Dianthus
Poppy
Tulip
Virginia Bluebells

Don't forget all the hardy annuals that you can direct sow in late summer/early fall to bloom in spring. I have had good luck with these early spring cool season bloomers. Best for me are larkspur-never fails, poppies, hesperis, and sweet alyssum my books say spring sow, but fall for me, in the spring I hardly have time to breathe). These are all sow-in-place types and useful only to those with appropriate spaces for that use.
larkspur - always reseeds, blue seems to reseed mostly blue
love in a mist
baby blue eyes (beautiful but closes by noon)
five spot
poppies - CA, Shirley, opium
forget-me-nots
silene
clarkia
godetia
dames rocket (hesperis) - reseeds just right
batchelor buttons
sweet alyssum(esp the new large tetraploids) and all the beautiful plants by previous poster.
Bulbs and roots: the small alliums-uniflorum, roseum, cowanii- and anemone nemrosa,geranium tuberosum, dicentras, (exsc spelling please). Also don't the dutch iris and glad.Bz. bloom in the down time between e spring and e summer? The LA lilies also very early.
And viola Columbine,the v. odorate varieties.,astillbes, aquillegias, dianthus, May Queen daisy, salvia Blue and White hill and May Night, achillea Anthea, candytuft. small veronicas. And the early shrubs - Quince, pearl bush, small roses, beautybush, deutzias, lilac.