AS WE LEARNED last week, my absolute favorite time of the year is here and, of course (tongue in cheek), that’s the month of May.
I just love the way it sounds.
Seriously though, the beginning of May has many gardening tasks we all need to be doing, so let’s not waste another moment on bad puns. Here is your list of garden chores for May.
1. Plant flowers.
April definitely provided us with showers, and now that May is upon us, flowers and vegetables should be all around us. The soil is warming up (still too cool for tomatoes, peppers, geraniums, impatiens), and the sun is hanging around longer each and every day, but even better, with Mother’s Day just a few days away, all plant vendors are filled to capacity with all manner of trees, bushes, shrubs, vines, perennials, annuals, flower pots baskets, roses and vegetables. The weather is still cool and damp, which is ideal for lessening transplant shock. Get started planting gorgeous blooming material now so it looks great for the Memorial Day barbecue, then come back a few weeks later and drop in those warmer soil loving plants like celosia, coleus, marigolds, cannas, geraniums, lantana, peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers and impatiens.
2. Bugs, slugs and weeds.
Now is the time to jump on all these garden destroyers. If you don’t do this in May, they will take over. Walk around your garden a couple of times each week and try to look at each plant for their presence. The real key to controlling these garden pests is early detection. The sooner you find them, the easier to eradicate because they are in far fewer numbers. May is the time to purge these harmful enemies before the numbers and damage they cause explodes.
3. Bulb care.
The real way to get great results from your bulbs next spring is to make sure you care for them properly this spring. Start by cutting away the blooms as soon as they are finished looking marvelous, then later on, trim away the foliage. The longer you can keep the green leaf growing, the better rejuvenated the bulb will become. Cultivate and weed the ground around your spring bulbs and fertilize with lime and bone-meal as well.
4. Deadhead.
In fact, it is not just your spring bulbs that greatly prosper by deadheading (removing old dying flowers), but actually, it is every blooming plant that does. By removing the old flower, which fosters disease and insects, you also remove the mechanism that reproduces, so the plant is immediately focused on making more, bigger, better flowers in order to fulfil its evolutionary drive to procreate. Deadhead rhodies, lilacs, azaleas, camellias and all your gorgeous rock garden perennials as soon as they fade, and do so on all your blooming plants throughout the year.
5. Add organics.
You still have time to get the miracle drug of gardening and use it. Any place you are going to plant now, (see No.1) first add some organic material to the soil. Be it peat moss, leaf mold, rotten or bagged manure or worm castings, your plants, especially in our organic poor soils, will work wonders.
6. Prop ’em up.
Your clematis, peas, lilies, delphiniums, beans, dahlias and other tall plants can be greatly improved by staking them or placing plant hoops or trellises around them. Do so now, because later is usually too late.
7. Mums, asters, upright sedum.
This trick for not producing tall lanky, flopped-over fall garden mums, aster and sedum is to double-pinch them. Do so now as soon as they are 3- to 5-inches tall. Cut half of them away, then do so again June 1 for a short, dense, compact and prolific mound of fall colors.
8. De-sucker.
Your fruit trees and ornamental grafted woody plants produce both ground and branch level suckers. Remove these instantly because they suck! They suck out nutrients, water and aesthetic value. On trees, another labor-saving trick is to every couple of weeks with a gloved hand rub away new, fresh, succulent suckers before they require laborious pruner work a few weeks later in order to remove them.
9. Mower up.
I want to make this as simple as can be: Raise your mower blade to a 3.5- to 3.75-inch level, and this will improve your lawn so much. But do this until October or else fritter away this advantage.
10. Baskets and containers.
If everyone would just hang one flower basket or put just a single flower pot out at work, home or their apartment, then we would instantly become “Flower City USA.” They are gorgeous, colorful eye-candy, so please — everyone — just get at least one.
11. Dahlias.
Dahlias and baskets are two of the big five for year-round outdoor appeal. Find, buy and plant dahlias soon for outstanding, cannot-be-beat fall color. Dahlias are the best!
But better yet — stay well all!
________
Andrew May is a freelance writer and ornamental horticulturist who dreams of having Clallam and Jefferson counties nationally recognized as “Flower Peninsula USA.” Send him questions c/o Peninsula Daily News, P.O. Box 1330, Port Angeles, WA 98362, or email news@peninsuladailynews.com (subject line: Andrew May).
