Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day - May 2011

Welcome to Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day for May 2011.

When it's May in Indianapolis, all (many) eyes turn to the west side of town where the Indianapolis 500 race will take place at the end of this month. All month long, it’s one race event after the next and everywhere we look there are black and white checkered race flags.

Here in my USDA Hardiness Zone 5B garden, where temperatures shot up to near record highs this past week, all the flowers seem to be in a race to bloom, and bloom quickly.

Like the flowers, I, too, am racing around trying to weed, buy plants, plant, prepare the vegetable garden for planting and occasionally, if only for a few minutes, sit back, relax and watch the action.

I’ll soon be racing to deadhead those daisies pictured above, too, because they are Leucanthemum vulgare, prolific self-sowers. I leave just a few each year because they are pretty, but just a few or I'd have a garden with nothing but those daisies.

Looking back on past years of blooms on May 15th, I noticed I have many of the same blooms today as I had in 2007, except that year I also had pea blossoms and the peonies were almost open. Today, the peonies are still tight buds and there isn’t a pea blossom in sight.

2008 seemed a tad bit slower than this year. That year I even had some tulips still in bloom in mid-May. This year they are all done. But to be fair about it, I have almost all species tulips now and the tulips of 2008 were all big showy Darwin types. 2009 seemed a lot like 2007 and ditto for 2010.

But whether the same or changed, I’ll always look forward to May, with its abundance of blooms and generally good weather. It’s a chance to see plans and plants come together to form… a garden.

The columbine (Aquilegia sp.) are all in full bloom.

I’m adding a few new columbine this year, and leaving them to self-sow themselves around the garden. They’ll do so without becoming a daisy-like thug and are easy enough to weed out if they show up where I don’t want them to be, or transplant them to where I do want them to grow.

The Salvia, including ‘May Nights’, are singing the blues.

I bought ‘May Nights’ because of the name.  I keep it because I like the flowers. Speaking of its name, I checked on it and it seems to be listed by different sources as Salvia × sylvestris, Salvia nemorosa and Salvia x superba. I'll stick with plain ol' 'May Nights' for now.

Have I mentioned my new obsession with Clematis? I’m fascinated by any with a bell-shaped flower, like C. integrifolia ‘Alba’.

I just got three new Clematis to plant, all with bell-shaped flowers. 

The ‘Miss Kim’ lilacs (Syringa patula) are blooming. The scent of them is enough to almost knock you over right now.

But the Iris right next to them is still a tight bud. I can’t recall when this Iris last bloomed, but it was many springs ago so I’m not even sure what the bloom color is. And heavens no, I don't know the variety, either.

Elsewhere in the garden, there are other shrubs besides lilacs in bloom including Deutzia gracilis ‘Duncan’, marketed by Proven Winners as Chardonnay Pearls®

Viburnum opulus ‘Sterile’, the common snowball bush that many of us remember from our grandmothers’ gardens, is almost finished blooming.

She’s a big shrub in my garden, a perfect hiding place for birds and no doubt a rabbit or two. It is also quite possible that maybe a family or an entire village of garden fairies live under there. This shrub is so big that I can hide stuff behind it, too, like the compost bins and the compost tumber. Now that's a versatile shrub.

There is much more in bloom - Baptisia, Rosa, Allium, Amsonia, Camassia, Geranium, Cerastium, Dianthus, Penstemon, to name a few. The blooms just keep coming and I keep going round and round in the garden, incredulous at times that we are already at the half-way point of May.

I must remember when I’m racing around the garden in May, I should remember to occasionally take a pit stop and sit for a minute or two to enjoy the flowers and remember why I garden. 

What’s blooming in your garden?

We would love to have you join in for Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day and show us.

It’s easy to participate and all are invited!

Just post on your blog about what is blooming in your garden on the 15th of the month and leave a comment to tell us what you have waiting for us to see so we can pay you a virtual visit. Then put your name and the url to your post on the Mr. Linky widget below to make it easy to find you.

“We can have flowers nearly every month of the year.” ~ Elizabeth Lawrence