The Garden in May

May is a month of dramatic transitions in my Maine garden. As the month began, the garden was in its early spring phase. The primary display was provided by daffodils on the front slope, with backup from some hyacinths in the blue and yellow border and Forsythia shrubs outside my study window. The first of the spring wildflowers to bloom in my garden, bluets (Houstonia caerulea), were just beginning to open their flowers.

By the middle of May, native spring wildflowers were stealing the show both in and out of the garden. The ground was now covered with carpets of bluets, and moss phlox (Phlox subulata) was providing colorful carpets of bloom on the front slope.

In most of my flower beds, flowers of wild strawberry (Fragaria virginiana) were also carpeting the ground. I have deliberately transplanted these local natives as groundcover in some flower beds and they have shown up as volunteers in others, but they are always welcome. In the woodland border, now in its second year, I was thrilled to see flowers blooming on wild geranium (Geranium maculatum), golden alexanders (Zizia aurea), and our native columbine (Aquilegia canadensis).

The beach plums (Prunus maritima) that I have added to the garden in recent years were also in bloom.

On the third weekend in May, I went away for a few days. While I was gone, some much-needed rain fell, and plants responded with a surge of growth. The beach plum at the turn into the driveway, which was just beginning to bloom a week earlier, was now dropping petals like snow on the ground below. The first flowers of spiderwort (Tradescantia virginiana) had opened, and the big rhododendron on my back slope had begun to bloom.

By the holiday weekend at the end of May, that rhododendron, which is the hallmark of late spring in my garden, was in its full glory.  Other signs of late spring were the abundant flowers of Aquilegia canadensis and Geranium maculatum and flowers on lilacs (Syringa vulgaris).

As May ends, my garden is experiencing yet another transition – from late spring to early summer. The first flowers of Siberian iris have opened, as have the first spikes of Heuchera x ‘Raspberry Regal.’

Blue star flower (Amsonia tabernaemontana) has also begun to bloom, and the flowers of Dianthus ‘Firewitch’ have popped open all at once in unseasonably warm temperatures.

Several summer-blooming varieties of hardy geranium are beginning to bloom, and the Allium x ‘Globemaster’ buds have begun to open. Many other flowers that are part of the early summer display are sporting fat buds. These include goatsbeard (Aruncus dioicus), peonies, roses, and Baptisia australis. There is so much to look forward to in the weeks to come.