What to Plant in May – For a Garden That Practically Looks After Itself Throughout the Summer
Act now for a prosperous and low-maintenance summer garden
May is a perfect time to add a wide variety of plants to your garden to guarantee it hits all the right glorious notes come summer. For a summer garden packed full of highlights but without the high maintenance, you can pick and choose from planting perennials, annuals, tubers, bulbs, grasses, and edibles this month.
In May, the soil is warm and moist in most regions. As the days and nights are more agreeable, and the frost ends for many gardeners, it becomes a time of great opportunity. It is the perfect month to sow seeds outdoors, transplant seedlings started indoors, or plant any purchases from garden centers, nurseries, or online.
During my years working in public gardens, May was a crucial month. There was a lot of planting of flower beds, borders, containers, and kitchen gardens to get the garden set up for summer. Think along the same lines for your backyard ideas. Whether you want flowers, texture, or vegetables, feel encouraged to plant this month. So let’s dive into what to plant in May.
Article continues belowPlant Simple, Long-Blooming Flowers
Most gardeners will aspire for flower beds or container gardens packed with bright summer flowers to enjoy. May is the perfect time to get that dream going into overdrive, as there are many low-maintenance, long-blooming plants you can start growing this month from seed.
The likes of zinnia, cosmos, sunflowers, marigolds, cornflower, snapdragons, and poppies can be sown this month directly into their growing position. The seeds germinate and establish quickly. And the reward can be blooms and instant color from early summer onwards.
Sowing seeds outdoors directly in flower beds or containers is a great way to fill gaps in your borders and add extra pops of color. You can start many of the above indoors and then transplant seedlings outdoors, depending on the space you have for propagation this month.
After the risk of frost has passed, it is also time to plant out sweet peas and other tender annuals you may have started indoors earlier in spring to add even more color to your beds.
California Giant Mix zinnias produce bright blooms in mixed shades of orange, pink, red, and yellow. The flowers are 4-6 inches and make great cut flowers.
There is a mix of 10+ cosmos varieties in one packet. Plants can grow three to six feet and have blooms that will attract bees and butterflies.
Velvet Queen sunflowers have large heads of blood-orange petals around a dark center. They make great cut flowers, and the seeds can be saved to sow next year.
Plant Productive Vegetables
May is a prime time for any vegetable garden. It can be a busy time of sowing seeds (both indoors and outdoors) or adding plants to your beds. There is a wide selection of crops that can fill any kitchen garden with summer vegetables.
Firstly, you can direct sow fast-growing vegetables like radishes, spinach, or spring lettuces to harvest in early summer before the temperatures peak and they risk bolting.
As the soil warms, the likes of carrots, beets, green onions, and rutabaga can also be sown in situ to grow on for summer crops. These can be sown successively every few weeks for long harvests.
May is also a window to plant out heat-loving vegetables you may have started earlier indoors, or bought as young plants. Tender crops such as tomatoes, cucumbers, corn, zucchini, pumpkins, and squash can be planted into their final position.
Other highly productive crops you can plant in May include beans, peas, kale, and chard. These are all vegetables that give big yields, especially when you harvest the likes of kale and chard (along with broccoli, arugula, spinach, and lettuce) as cut-and-come-again vegetables.
A collection of seed packets to grow six different varieties of radish, including French Breakfast, Watermelon, and Purple Plum.
A pack of 5 different colorful carrot varieties. With seeds for Little Finger Carrot, Nantes Carrot, Solar Yellow Carrot, Starburst Carrot, and Dragon Carrot.
Sungold is a popular tomato variety that is grown for golden-orange fruits with a sweet flavor. The plants produce large amounts of cherry tomatoes each season.
Plant Pollinator-Friendly Native Perennials
There are many perennials you can plant in May, but the best route to go is native plants to support local wildlife in your garden. These plants have evolved to suit your climate and the pollinators and beneficial wildlife in your area, and they will bed down quickly if planted this month.
May is an ideal time to plant perennials as they can develop strong roots before summer arrives. They will put on a glorious show for months to come. The likes of black-eyed Susan, milkweed, coneflower, asters, and bee balm will burst into bloom come summer and attract the likes of bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds into your garden.
To get the plants off to the best possible start in your garden, add some organic matter to the planting site. Adding some compost or well-rotted manure will boost the soil structure, maintain moisture, and provide nutrients as it breaks down.
Mulching after planting is also advisable to regulate soil temperature, retain moisture, and smother weeds. Add a layer 2-3 inches deep of compost or shredded bark around the newly-planted perennials, taking care not to smother them.
Swamp milkweed is an essential host plant for the monarch butterfly. This plant is suitable for zones 3-6 and produces fragrant pink flowers in late summer.
Pink Crush attracts bees and butterflies to its deep pink flowers in late summer and early fall. It reaches only 1-2 feet tall and 2-3 feet wide, and is suitable for zones 4-8.
Bee balm plants attract bees, hummingbirds, and butterflies to their nectar-rich tubular flowers. This 2-pack has plants with pink and purple blooms.
Plant Grasses to Add Drama
Ornamental grasses come in a range of shapes and sizes, from small blue fescue grass that can be under a foot tall to Stipa gigantea or pampas grass that can soar to over six feet. The range includes warm- and cool-season grasses, as well as evergreen and deciduous types.
There is a huge variety when you are landscaping with ornamental grasses, but they all offer movement and drama. Whether used as screening plants, dotted through flower beds to provide a textural backdrop to showy blooms, or as specimen plants in containers, grasses add something special to yards of any size.
May is the right time to plant warm-season grasses, including switchgrass (Panicum), fountain grass (Pennisetum), and maiden grass (Miscanthus). These grasses start growing in late spring, and planting this month lets them establish before the temperatures rise in summer.
Plant ornamental grasses in a sunny spot, but they will tolerate some shade. If you put grasses in containers, use heavier pots to prevent taller grasses from blowing over, and use a well-draining potting mix, as grasses are unhappy sitting in wet soil for long periods.
This attractive grass offers seasonal interest as the foliage changes from blue-green to dark red to bright orange throughout the year. It grows to 3-4 feet tall.
A fast-growing, low-maintenance grass with maroon blades that can be grown in the ground or in a container. This pack contains three live plants.
Adagio Maiden Grass is a compact ornamental grass. It reaches 3-4 feet tall, and the low-maintenance grass has silver-green foliage with pinkish flowers.
Plant Flowering Tubers
For a crescendo of summer blooms, there are flowering tubers, bulbs, and corms you can plant in May for vibrant displays.
Once the risk of frost has passed and the soil warms in spring to around 60°F, summer-flowering bulbs and tubers like dahlias, cannas, gladioli, agapanthus, and crocosmia can all be planted. These will provide a riot of color that peaks in summer and lasts into fall.
Of all those listed above, perhaps dahlias are the most adored by gardeners globally. And for good reason, as there are so many types of dahlias in different shapes, sizes, and colors that can brighten up any yard.
It is not too late to buy dahlia tubers, and, depending on your location, the window to plant dahlias can stretch until early June. Whether you put them in borders and grow dahlias in pots, there can be a variety to suit any garden.
For the best performance from your summer bulbs, incorporate organic matter, such as compost or well-rotted manure, into the soil before planting to improve soil structure and moisture retention.
'The President' is a popular canna variety with scarlet-red flowers and lush green foliage. It blooms from summer into early fall.
This colorful mix of dahlias has two tubers of four different varieties, offering large blooms in different sizes and shades.
This agapanthus variety has flower heads with striped blue and white petals standing atop stems that reach 24 inches tall.
Gardens on a smaller scale can be as bright and bold as any other. Filling pots and troughs with long-flowering container plants will reward you with a bold display and color throughout summer.
Some of the best container flowers to plant in May include sunflowers, alyssum, thunbergia, and black-eyed Susans.
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