May 2024
May is my favorite month of the year. While there are not many blooms yet, this is the month when we all dream of the beauty Summer will bring to our garden spaces. I love sitting with my coffee in the garden during this time of year when the mornings are still cool and all the plants have the fresh green look of Spring. May is also a very busy time in the garden, as we can safely plant flowers in the garden and containers without fear of frosts or freezes. Speaking of busy, here are your garden tasks for the month:
May Garden Tasks
It is now safe to plant tender perennials and annuals. If you’re buying your plants at a nursery, don’t plant them immediately. Let them sit in a shady location for a couple of days to acclimate to the outdoors and prevent scorching the foliage.
Space your plants according to the information on the plant tags. Many people plant their flowers too close together, not anticipating how much they will spread. Spacing appropriately means fewer plants to purchase, saving you money.
If you’re planting perennials, I highly recommend placing a fertilizer product (like Bio-tone Starter Plus) with micorrhizae in the planting hole, which will help the plants connect more quickly with the surrounding soil, allowing them to uptake more water and nutrients. Your plants will grow and bloom much more vigorously.
If you’re planting multiples of the same annuals, make sure you stagger their placement, rather than planting them in a straight line like a row of soldiers. It will give you a much more natural look.
If you have perennials that bloom later in the Summer, the middle of May is a good time to give them a bit of a haircut. Cut the foliage back by about a third. This will cause the plant to become bushier and provide more flowers when they begin to bloom. It also helps tall perennials from flopping in heavy rains.
Do not remove the foliage from your daffodils and tulips until they have begun to turn yellow. I know the long strappy leaves are not a pretty sight while they are dying back, but they need the energy those leaves are absorbing from the sun to produce next Spring’s flowers.
May Tip - When to Water
One of the most frequent questions I get is “How often should I water?” I wish there were an easy answer for that, but it depends on so many variables - Did it rain? If so, how much? How hot is it going to be? Is it going to be sunny or cloudy?, etc. Fortunately, there is now a simple, inexpensive tool you can purchase to remove the guesswork for this important question. It’s called a moisture meter. I bought mine a couple of years ago from Amazon, but I recently noticed that you can find them at local nurseries (the first pic below was taken at Natorp’s, where they retail for $10). You simply insert the probe several inches deep into the soil and it instantly displays the moisture level in the soil. The second pic in the gallery below shows the meter reading before I watered this pot of Caladiums. The third pic shows the reading after I watered the pot. It’s sooo simple and it doesn’t require any batteries or charging devices. I highly recommend using one if you’re never quite sure when to water.
