May in the garden is such a delightful month! There is so much color and fragrance to enjoy that routine chores may be easily overlooked. Yet this is the time to tend to needed duties if summer and fall gardens are as colorful and attractive as they deserve.
Planting Hardy Annuals
Now many kinds of annuals can be sown out of doors. These include sweet alyssum, California poppies, portulaca, zinnias, marigolds, cosmos, and others.
Preparation of the seedbed for those to be transplanted can be done easily and quickly since the soil is warm and flaky. Preparing a small seedbed will be easy to transplant the seedlings to their permanent places in beds and borders within a few weeks.
Annuals for Hedges
Two useful annuals for low hedges are four o’clock and Kochia, also known as false cypress or Mexican lire-bush. This globular annual, which reaches 1 ½’ to 2’ feet high, looks like small arborvitae and turns fiery red in, Autumn.
Garden Pool Planting
Water lilies can be planted now in the garden pool. Old plants should be set in pots or tubs of new soil and heavily fertilized. Keep the containers out of water for a day and cover the surface with sand to keep the water in the pool clear.
Feed the Lawn
If you neglected to feed your lawn, get to the job as soon as possible. A fertilizer high in nitrogen, such as one with an 8-6-4 analysis, encourages dense quick growth, which is essential now to combat the onslaught of weeds.
Start weed control in your lawn now with applications of 2,4-D to rid your property of gill-over-the-ground, money-wort, plantains, dandelions, chickweed, and other broad-leaved weeds. Because it is complicated to clean out all traces of the spray, do not use 2,4-D and other weed killers in the same sprayer used for insecticides.
In the Vegetable Patch
As soon as apple trees are in flower, it is usually safe to set out tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, and other so-called tender vegetables. These may need protection from the hot sun for a day or two until they become established.
Otherwise, they may wilt severely, and it will take a week or more for them to start their normal development. Shading can be done with newspapers, anchored with soil, or upturned fruit baskets. Or you may use trimmings from recently pruned shrubs. These can be stuck in the ground around the plants to provide light shade.
Water is Essential
The warm days in the May arc often try on newly planted shrubs and trees. These newly-set specimens have a double job to do. They must establish roots in a new location and, at the same time, produce foliage and flowers. To accomplish their essential growth satisfactorily, they need quantities of water.
Therefore, water thoroughly every few days, especially if rains fail to conic. Watering can be done easily and quickly if you have allowed for depression around each newly planted shrub.
Hide Unsightly Areas
Unsightly areas can be screened by planting some of the rapidly growing annual vines. Morning glories, scarlet runner beans, quamoclit or cypress vine, and the little-known hyacinth bean are among the fast growers. These vines are rampant growers and will quickly cover ugly fences or cling to any temporary support.
Plant Summer Bulbs
Summer flowering bulbs such as gladiolus, dahlias, Ismene or basket-flower, tigridias, montbretia, and summer hyacinths can be set out now. Except for dahlias, these can be used in groups of five or more to provide color in the foreground of the shrub border during late summer.
Ants often do severe damage when they make nests in flower beds or the crowns of plants. Check them before they get a head start by .using one of the aerosol-type bombs for ants.
Perennials Need Dividing
Perennials that need division, such as chrysanthemums, hardy asters, coral bells, phlox, and other summer-blooming kinds, should be attended. If the top growth of each division is somewhat soft and rank, pinch it back an inch or two to encourage branching.
Usually, the center of each clump of perennials is the desirable feast portion because it tends to become woody. Select only vigorous well-tooted divisions for replanting.
Care for House Plants
House plants can be set out DOW, too. Some will need repotting, and others may have to be cut back. Those who require part shade should be given permanent summer locations where the drip from overhanging trees or buildings will not harm them. Feed regularly with liquid fertilizer.
Spray for Lacebugs
Formerly lace bug and mulberry whitefly, two annoying pests which attack rhododendrons, azaleas, and Pieris, were controlled by spraying the undersides of the leaves with nicotine sulfate and soap.
Nowadays, however, malathion or undone are recommended. To prevent the whitefly, apply the first spray about the 15th of May, followed by a second application 7-10 days later. Make a third application in mid-June.
A rusty appearance on the underside of rhododendrons and azaleas leaves indicates the lace bug’s presence. Spray with lindane, starting in hue May or early June, when eggs start to hatch; follow with a second spray a week to 10 days later and a summer spray to eradicate the second brood.
Control Birch Leaf Miner
Small black flies on the leaves or hovering about your birch trees are probably the adult forms of the birch leaf miner, which makes the leaves have a scorched brown appearance. Spray about ten days after eggs are laid with 25% lindane.
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