The wait is over — long days, warm temperatures and moist ground are bringing a riotous symphony of colors, new greenery in the woods and endless activities which have me moving throughout my garden beds wondering how I am going to get the time to tackle everything in my wish list. Here is what to do on your Northeast garden in May.
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Admire lovely lupines. One of the most beautiful wildflowers, purple lupines dot roadsides and grow happily in ditches and areas with reckless abandon. They’re a biennial, so if you would like repeat blooms, choose a perennial hybrid ; I implanted ‘Gallery Blue’ (Lupinus polyphyllus) and love its compound leaves and spiky habit.
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Search for mayapple in the woodland. This rhizomatous denizen flourishes in the acidic soils of Eastern deciduous woods, spreading slowly to form huge colonies. Mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum, zones 3 to 9) isn’t ordinary — you wont find it in garden centres — so search for it in native plant earnings this month.
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Lean stone garden plantings. Some sun-loving alpines push out blossoms early, so try to split overgrown clumps before the blossoms emerge to restrict damage to buds and stems, and maintain other crops in check, making sure there’s space to move about easily. Snip or prune rampant expansion, so plants don’t compete for limited water.
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Add mulch to garden beds. Once I start my spring cleanup, I normally apply 2 to 3 inches of mulch around perennials. I have a lot of gardens, so I purchase a natural pine-spruce mulch in bulk and maintain a heap by the garage. It is easiest to do this task done early, before bulbs and perennials fill out, so that from the time they’re ready to bloom, the beds seem fabulous.
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Pamper peonies using a top-dressing of compost. The queen of garden blossoms likes to be wealthy — no real surprise there, I figure. When peony crowns push from the ground, I add mulch out of my bins around the base of crops and gently mix it in the topsoil to form a friable, acidic loam that the crops love. While the wheelbarrow is out, I move compost to the vegetable beds, therefore they’re prepped and ready to get seedling transplants from the cold period.
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Strategy for early color. If you have a lot of summer bloomers, like daylilies, roses and hydrangeas, consider adding plants which summit early. To get a soft spring combination, consider growing the wonderful ‘May Night’ salvia (Salvia nemerosa ‘May Night’, zones 4 to 8) with decorative onion (Allium ‘Globemaster’) and lightly textured, fragrant Walker’s Low catmint (Nepeta x faasenii ‘Walker’s Low’, zones 3 to 8). Shear the salvia to the ground after it blossoms, and it’ll rebloom.
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Dig and divide hostas. Keep hostas looking their best by dividing them every few years. Look for brightly colored leaves which emerge from the soil appearing like cigars — if you’re able to split clumps at this early stage, you are on top of your game. Get a wheelbarrow for transferring clumps around, plus a sharp spade and a serrated knife for digging through the main mass. If leaves become torn or crushed in the process of earning divisions, just snip them off; hostas can endure abuse.
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Add flowering trees to woodland edges. How about planting a tree Mother’s Day this year? Instead of paying a restaurant tab, go shopping in the local nursery and pick out a tree to grow your landscape. Ornamental trees like flowering dogwood (Cornus florida), eastern redbud (Cercis canadensis) and shadbush (Amelanchier spp) look fantastic massed along the borders of woods and herald spring using their passing beauty.
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