The Marvelous Month of May

Clockwise from top left: bridal veil spirea, bleeding heart, lily of the valley, daffodil, allium.

My best-loved season is spring and May is my favorite month in the garden. Every day I discover a new bloom; the perpetual renewal never becomes boring. Today, I find bridal-veil spirea full of its delicate, lacy, white blossoms; there is more of Connie's sweet-scented lily of the valley among the lady's mantle; bleeding heart is stunning; and a few daffodils are clinging to the season. My biggest surprise is the purple allium in the butterfly garden: a surprise because I don't recall planting the bulbs last fall. Oh dear, my age is showing, but May always promises surprises.

"The world's favorite season is the spring.

All seems possible in May."

--Edwin Way Teale

 As is often the case at this time of year, the weather has been very unpredictable. Mark Twain famously said, "In the Spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours." This is true of the past several weeks; heavy rains and high winds have not been unusual and some days have been too cold for me to venture outside. As a result, I am somewhat late in completing my spring tasks this year. But the garden didn't wait for me; it looks beautiful anyway especially since I gave all the beds a (late) mulching.

The Cottage Garden before I mulched with compost.

"The unmulched garden looks to me like some naked thing

which for one reason or another

would be better off with a few clothes on."

-- Ruth Stout

Weeping Japanes Maple by the waterfall is the star of Froggy Pond.

At the entrance to my Tranquility Garden, the viburnum is about to burst into bloom. This former shade garden is undergoing a transformation due to the felling of the large white maple. I removed the hostas, brunnera, hellebores and astilbes from the area because it now receives more sun. I've left similar plants, however, in spots that I think will continue to have enough shade.

Viburnum

I didn't remove plants from this side of Serenity Garden as it is still shady.

Can you see May apple behind the spirea

 A mixture of shade and sun plants. I'm waiting to see how Serenity fares this summer.

I doubled the size of the foundation bed across from the Serenity Garden and placed the shade-lovers there. I am hoping they will receive enough shade in the afternoon from the catalpa tree when its large leaves develop. If not, they must go to the Woodland Walk.

I added a recently acquired bloodroot.

Newly planted shade bed with bloodroot (top right.)

The Woodland Walk is looking lovely. To mark the path, H.H. placed branches from our beloved white birch that the wind blew down.

St. Francis on a carpet of sweet woodruff; wild ginger bottom right.

The kitchen garden displays all the promise of the new gardening season: peas are coming up, garlic and onions are green. All the beds are mulched with mushroom compost ready for planting.

Next time I'll write a Kitchen Garden update and tell you about my new coldframe extension on the potting shed. It is amazing; I can't wait to show you.

Today, it is very windy.

"Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May."

-- William Shakespear

The birds are busy. Top - Carolina wren. Bottom - scarlet tanager.

Forgive me for not giving botanical names but this is a late posting for Garden Bloggers Bloom Day and I don't want to delay it further. (If you don't recognize a plant let me know in a comment.) If you haven't yet visited Carol's blog at May Dreams Gardens, please do pop by to see what is blooming around the world today. I'm off there now.

Happy May, dear gardening friends.

Pamela x

Yesterday, after the rain.

"Don't knock the weather: 

nine-tenths of the people couldn't start a conversation if it didn't change once in a while."

--Kin Hubbard

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