May Garden

May showers bring May flowers?

May was strange! Really not a great month for me personally, but for the garden? Not bad! I’m so used to the Mays of the last few years that I expected the heat to come on too aggressively and wilt away all the spring flowers, but this month has been so mild. It rains all the time, too, which, yes, is emotionally depressing, but, garden-wise, very helpful. Also helpful environmentally, as I’ve hardly had to fill up the watering can at all. Some days it’s so dreary that I don’t go outside at all, but when I emerge a few days later there are all sorts of new flowers to look at. Definitely cheering!

Sowing:

• Nasturtiums: Whenever I remember to I like to stick these little round seeds into bare spots in containers. Nasturtiums come up so quickly, and even just the leaves are pretty, though I do especially love the color of the Tip Top Pink Blush flowers.

• Dill: Dill is my favorite herb and I love the look of it in a garden, so I sprinkled some of these seeds randomly, too. The problem is that I always forget exactly where I planted them, but I guess they’ll turn up sooner or later.

• Sunflower: I grew Astra Rose Cream last summer and loved it, so this summer I’m being unadventurous and growing the same one again. I just like it because it doesn’t get too tall—a really tall sunflower would look funny and probably just flop over in a container, but these ones work well, and they definitely fit the color scheme of the garden more than a traditional yellow one would.

Peep “helping” in the garden—I guess he helps me by deadheading the violas because he’s obsessed with eating them.

Planting

I almost waited until the unofficial Mother’s Day safe date to plant, but the weather was so pleasant and the nights stayed so warm for the first half of the month that I went ahead and planted most of my seedlings a few days early. I just couldn’t help myself. But the great thing about growing in containers is that you can take them inside if the night temperatures drop too low. Fortunately the temperatures didn’t, and my seedlings were getting so root bound that they were happy to finally be planted out into soil.

In my largest containers I planted combinations of zinnias, cosmos, Savannah grass, and celosia, throwing in the odd phlox or annual salvia where space allowed. I really was trying to be intentional about it, looking up inspiration on Instagram and in garden magazines—I’d think about planting combinations so much that sometimes I’d even dream about them—but in the end my mind was cluttered and I just went with a haphazard mess of things. Will the plants look all right together once they bloom? I hope so, but if not I can always rip out and replant, which is kind of my thing, anyway.

I also planted three (or is it four? It’s raining and I’m too lazy to go outside and check) dahlias in grow bags, but this year I gave them each a friend, digging in cosmos, orlaya, something frothy . . . No wasted space this year!

In Bloom

• Roses! It’s been such a good spring for roses, with all of this rainy mildness, and I’ve never seen my three-year-old Carding Mill look better. When it first started blooming the flowers were extra full and a lot paler than they usually are—not quite the pinky apricot that is showing currently in the photo above. Queen of Sweden is only two years old, so not quite as lush, and my first year Windermere is still working on its buds, but I have high hopes. I know that my mom’s Windermere, planted by my dad last year in South Carolina, is already looking beautiful.

• Sweet rocket: I bought these seeds when I lived in Portland, and I do think they’re better suited for planting in the ground. Not that they do badly in a pot, though; mine are really healthy, but it just doesn’t have that same, slightly wild effect. I love the idea of swathes of sweet rocket, floating in a field.

• Snapdragons: The Chantilly Light Salmon snapdragons are in bloom, and the Potomac Ivory aren’t too far behind. Last year I almost didn’t grow snapdragons, which is crazy, considering how well they ended up doing for me. They supposedly don’t love heat, but mine bloomed and bloomed all summer without complaining.

• Phlox: I get so excited to grow plants I’ve never grown before, which this year included the very trendy phlox Crème Brûlée. And it’s very pretty! I’ll include photos once it fills out a little, because right now it’s only just begun to flower. But the petals do look like little ballerina tutus, and the color is exactly what I hoped it would be.

• Alyssum: So much alyssum. Was this growing in last month’s update? Probably, but it does so well in cool-ish weather so it’s still happy this month. I initially winter-sowed some seeds, but I’ve also been direct-sowing them, which is so much easier to do. Alyssum is very nasturtium-like in its ability to quickly cheer up a boring space.

• Erigeron: Another first-time grow for me. So far I love the dangliness of the stems that end in the tiniest of daisy blooms, but I’m really looking forward to the moment the plant explodes into a tangled a mess of flowers.

• Thunbergia: I was really amazed at how quickly this one bloomed for me this year. It’s very slowly climbing the teepee, but already throwing out white flowers.

• Various perennials: Salvia ‘Bumblesky’ has already finished its first flush, nepeta ‘Walker’s Low’ is still keeping the ‘Queen of Sweden Rose’ company in its big pot, my new verbena ‘Bampton’ is filling out a stoop find terracotta window box very nicely, verbascum ‘Southern Charm’ is looking slightly disheveled but still too pretty to chop, and echinacea ‘Pallida’ is oh so close to putting out its spidery little petals.

• Violas: I still have violas! Most of them are starting to look slightly ragged; I think I’ll probably give them a little post-Chelsea chop soon so that they can bloom again in the summer. But most of the color in my garden right now comes from violas, and I’m still picking them for the apartment, so they’re staying put for now.

Growing

The thing I love most about gardening in May is that, while the garden is already full of color, there’s still so much to look forward to. The anticipation is what really gets me. That’s probably what I love the most about being a gardener—always having something to prepare for and look forward to.

So, yes, in the photo above you can see the sweet rocket, but underneath the sweet rocket are the (currently unlovely) nicotiana and lace flower plants whose flower stalks have been pinched out in greedy effort to get more flowers. And behind the sweet rocket is my sweet pea teepee. Last year I think I did two pots of sweet peas, but May of 2024 was so hot that the poor plants withered quickly. I do think that the sweet peas will be happier this year, or at least I hope so. So far they look healthy. Maybe I’ll cross my fingers for more of this mild and rainy weather.

But has it been too mild for the zinnias? Zinnias love heat and at the moment my little plants are struggling a bit. So just to be on the safe side I direct-sowed some more into pots. Come to think of it maybe I should direct-sow some celosia, too, since my seedlings are still way too small. Next week the temperatures in New York should hit the 80s, so at least someone will be happy, I guess. (I won’t be!)

I’m hoping the cobaea scandens will like the heat, too. I currently have them growing up bamboo sticks in grow bags, but ever since I’ve planted them out they haven’t been as vigorous as they had been on the kitchen window ledge. I still haven’t given up hope for them, though. I still have this vision of them climbing up the side of the building and stretching across the white brick wall, and it really would be lovely.