The Late Spring Speed-Up

A fellow garden blogger, Sunil Patel of Sunil’s Garden, once described my Maine garden season – which is considerably more compressed than his more temperate UK garden experience – as “gardening in the fast lane.” If that is true, then this point in the year as May has turned to June, is the time when my garden puts on speed and moves out into the fast lane. After the leisurely pace of April and early May, when crocus flowers slowly appeared and were followed by daffodils, moss phlox, and native wildflowers like violets, wild strawberries and bluets, suddenly everything is happening at once.

The big rhododendron on the back slope (above) came into its glory in the last week of May and is now starting to drop its petals. Nearby, on the side slope, big clumps of Amsonia tabernaemontana are full of pale steel blue flowers.

At this time of year, each day’s morning stroll through the garden finds new flowers opening for the first time. Those that have come into bloom in just the past few days include Allium x ‘Globemaster,’

Dianthus gratianopolitanus ‘Firewitch,’

sundial lupine (Lupinus perennis) and Heuchera x ‘Raspberry Regal,’

several varieties of spiderwort (Tradescantia virginiana),

and the first of the roses to flower, ‘Therese Bugnet.’

The Siberian irises have also begun to bloom, including the self-sown species plants that are usually dark blue, the beautiful violet variety that was passed along to me from a friend who, in turn, got it as a division from her aunt, and the variety ‘Hubbard,’ which another friend gave me several divisions of a few years ago.

In that same few days, I have gone from having one species of hardy geranium (Geranium maculatum) in bloom, to also having flowers on G. x cantabrigiense, G. x oxonianum, G. sanguineum, and G. x ‘Brookside.’

As late spring turns into summer in the weeks to come, the speed-up will continue. Irises and roses will be joined by baptisia and peonies and goatsbeard and spirea. These will be followed in turn by daylilies and coreopsis and false sunflowers as the garden reaches its high summer peak in late July.

This late spring moment, as the speed-up begins, is an exciting time in the garden and a time of sublime anticipation.