Garden Notes: What is Waking Up

May is when the garden begins to feel more certain.

The bringing-plants-in-and-out season starts to ease. The weather still has its surprises, but there are more warm days than cold ones, and the garden begins to trust itself a little more.

By May, it usually starts to feel safer to trust the season.

The days are often reaching into the 70s and 80s, and nighttime temperatures are beginning to stay above 50 degrees more consistently. Once nights stay in the mid-50s and above, many plants finally begin to wake up and settle in.

Seedlings start stretching taller.
Herbs wake up.
Pots fill in.
The grass deepens green.
Tiny buds become flowers almost overnight.

In the garden, the gerber daisies are coming out, along with sage, coneflower, and canna lilies. Still sleeping, but close to waking, are lantana, verbena, and hibiscus.

The azaleas are open.
The wisteria is beginning to wane.
The dogwoods are fading.

But the crepe myrtles are starting to stage for summer, thinking about what they are going to do next.

There is still work to do, of course.

Watching for late cold snaps.
Dragging a few plants inside one more time.
Checking leaves.
Turning pots toward the sun.
Trying to trust that something small today may become beautiful later.

A Few Things to Add in May

For the Vegetable Garden

May is a good time to add warm-weather favorites like tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, squash, green beans, basil, melons, corn, pumpkins, and watermelon. Most vegetable gardens begin to feel safer once nighttime temperatures stay above 50 degrees.

For the Porch

A porch can start to feel fuller in May with petunias, begonias, salvia, impatiens, pentas, herbs, and trailing flowers in pots or baskets. Bigger containers hold moisture better and help plants tolerate summer heat.

For the Butterfly Garden

May is a lovely time to add milkweed, bee balm, mountain mint, coneflower, black-eyed Susan, asters, phlox, and butterfly weed.

You can hear the regular chirp of tree frogs now.

You watch for turtles crossing the roads.
Snakes begin sunning themselves in the warmer spots, so you have to keep an eye out for them.

I am hopeful the ribbon snake, the painted turtle, and the hummingbirds will all make their presence known, if they have not already started to.

The garden does not bloom all at once.

It happens in pieces.

A few leaves.
A few flowers.
A little more color each day.

And then one morning, you look around and realize everything is waking up.