May is the month for you if you make a note when your favorite plant starts to bloom. May is the month for you if you count the number of hummingbirds at the feeder everyday. May is the month for you if you’ve been waiting for the soil to warm enough to plant melons, peppers, and winter squash.
A friend gave me a blue hokkaido squash last fall. I saved the seeds, and have been waiting patiently to plant them. It’s one of the best tasting and beautiful squash you can grow, and I’m looking forward to harvesting my own this fall. They store for quite a while, taste great, and look stunning in a Halloween display along side orange pumpkins. I can hardly wait.
Plants are growing like crazy this month, preparing to reproduce at their given times. The birds, bees, and even those pesky tree squirrels are finding lots of food and nectar to feed their young.
A lot of work is going into modifying irrigation systems to conserve water and mulching all bare soil to prepare for the dry summer months. I think we deserve to set a little time aside between gardening tasks to enjoy the wonder of nature and our own gardens.
Here’s a task that requires no work at all, but the benefits are huge. Set aside a small area of your yard — say 10 percent or so — and leave it uncultivated. Let it grow wild and see what native plants and wildlife show up. This would be a good spot to plant milkweed and let it self-sow for the monarch butterfly.
Don’t push yourself and bite off more than you can do in the garden at a time. Landscaping doesn’t have to be done all at once. Maybe choose a new tree or a couple low water-use shrubs to plant and care for this summer.
Choose something that looks good year-round or take one corner this year and another corner next year to redo or install — this won’t break your water budget or your back.
Food gardening is hard work. Consider growing just those edibles that taste so delicious freshly picked from the garden. Edibles like strawberries, blueberries, herbs, lettuces, chard, and arugula are ornamental — don’t take up too much room — and are easy to grow.
I was disappointed with my tomatoes last year. They were OK, but nowhere near as tasty as the dry-farmed early girls at the Farmer’s Market.
This year, I’m only going to grow cherry tomatoes. One of life’s simple pleasures is picking and eating your own fruit as you work in the garden. Besides my favorite Sungold, I’m going to try growing local heirlooms like “Chadwick’s Cherries” and “Camp Joy.”
Don’t get me started on the weeds this year.
With those early spring rains, everything you don’t want in the yard is going nuts. I have actually been gaining ground on controlling many of the annual weeds around my house.
The soil is soft and the smaller root system is more likely to let go, so as I walk around, I pick a few weeds or as much as I can without it feeling like work. Each plant can produce so many hundreds of seeds that I think of it as free exercise.
When the last flowers of your rhododendron, azalea, camellia, weigela, and spirea have finished, it’s time to prune them.
If you prune just before the plant blooms then you risk removing that year’s flowers — if you prune several months after flowering, you risk removing the flower buds that are forming for next year.
Basically it’s best to prune a bit each year to shape and thin the plant. The rules apply to most plants. Prune to the next whorl or set of leaves. There’s no need other than looks to deadhead old flowers.
It was great to get a bit more rain last week — plants appreciate the moisture especially during spring. Come summer everything slows down to survive, and that’s a part of our unique climate here, too.
– Jan Nelson, a landscape designer and California certified nursery professional, will answer questions about gardening in the Santa Cruz Mountains. E-mail her at ja******@ao*.com, or visit www.jannelsonlandscapedesign.com to view past columns and pictures.
