May Gardening

Its go, go, go for gardening this month!

Seedlings started inside should be hardened off and ready to plant by the end of the month. 

Bedding plants can be purchased now.  I live in zone 5a and hold off planting until near the end of the month, but I buy earlier.  If I wait until the end of May to buy, the plants are well picked over, and I cannot always get the plants I want.

Continue dividing and replanting perennials as soon as the ground is workable.
Plant potatoes 2 weeks before last frost.

Give the lawn areas a haircut and add corn gluten meal if I can find some.

Remember to weed – don’t give the weeds a chance to get out of control.  Get them when they’re small.  Of course, if you’re like me, you let them grow a bit just to see what they are.  I let cleome, nigella and cosmos self-seed and don’t want to destroy all the seedlings until I’m sure.

Leave the dandelions for a while.  They are useful plants.  The flowers are a life-saving source of nectar for early bees and the roots of dandelions aerate the soil and produce tunnels for worm travelling. Dig and discard the dandelions in late June.

Give your roses and summer or fall blooming shrubs a good pruning now that you can see where growth will be.  Remember to prune dead, damaged and diseased wood first, then prune for shape or size.  Leave the spring-flowering shrubs until after they have flowered before you prune them. 

Sow the seeds of hardy annuals outside where they will grow and remember where you sowed them.  Put in stakes and string if you must.
Plant summer bulbs such as cannas and tuberous begonias as soon as all danger of frost is gone.  It’s a good idea to wait until after June 1.

Check for tent caterpillars.  They seem to appear about the time the leaves start to open. Newly hatched caterpillars and their tent homes are so tiny that you may miss them, but by the middle of May they should be apparent.  If you are lucky like us, the chickadees will have picked out most of the tent caterpillar cocoons and any stray larvae that weren’t found during winter and early spring.

And enjoy May.  The winter was long.  May is your reward

Pollinator Patches

"Be the change you want to see in the world." When Mahatma Gandhi said that he must have been thinking about Pollinator Patches. You can make a difference in your world this year by creating a Pollinator Patch -- a habitat for butterflies and native bees and other insects.

Set aside a portion of your garden or maybe your boulevard to be devoted to native plants that pollinators will love. Plan your Patch in a sunny spot that will attract bees and other insects.   There is lots of information on the Web about what native plants you may want to choose. 

You might want to go beyond your personal bounds and plant a Patch on public ground.  You’ll need permission to do this but municipalities are conscious of the need for native plants for insects and may be very glad to have you head a native planting group.

Although your planting is designed to be a haven for butterflies and other insects, your focus right now should be on the Monarch Butterfly.  The butterfly has been assessed as endangered by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada.

To attract and save Monarchs, be sure to plant a stand of milkweed in your Pollinator Patch.  Milkweed is critical to the life cycle of Monarch Butterflies. The butterflies will hunt for milkweed and only milkweed for egg laying. They will lay their eggs on the underside of the leaves. Plants of the milkweed family are also the hosts of Monarch larvae. The resulting larvae will eat only milkweed leaves. No milkweed -- no Monarchs.]

If you don't want to plant ordinary milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) in your garden, consider Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) instead.

For bees and other butterflies, yellow, red and orange plants of the composite type are especially interesting.  Rudbeckias and asters are the easiest to grow.  Coreopsis is another plant loved by bees and butterflies.  Research on the web for other plants for your Pollinator Patch.

“Be the change you want to see in the world.”  Plant a Pollinator patch this year.

The one process now going on that will take millions of years to correct is the loss of genetic and species diversity by the destruction of natural habitats. This is the folly our descendants are least likely to forgive us. --- E. O. Wilson

 

Jottings

Jottings contains some articles I wrote for the monthly newsletter of Barrie's Garden Club and other projects. I hope you enjoy them.

 

It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment. Ansel Adams (1902 - 1984)

 

Hints & Tricks

This is a collection of neat ideas and crazy tricks that I've collected from various sources. Many are amusing, and most are useful. We gardeners just love to learn neat little ways of doing our gardening jobs more effectively. My most popular talk was just that: "Hints and Tricks."

Most of the hints I've used myself or know someone who will vouch for them. All of them are fun to read and almost as much fun to do.

 

We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it's forever. Carl Sagan (1934 - 1996)

 

Gardening Info

This is a miscellaneous section of odds and sods of information I've collected and would like to share. I've found most of the information in magazines and on the internet or in the many gardening books I can't resist buying!

You'll also find some of my favourite links on the Gardening Info page.

 

"Monsanto should not have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech food. Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is the F.D.A.’s job." ~ Philip Angell, Monsanto's Director of Communications (October 1998)

 

The Blog

I guess the whole site is a sort of blog, isn't it?

But this newer section is a more conventional blog -- a space to put my thoughts and new ideas as I learn them or think them.