This month, plant brilliant flowers, start your summer veggies and assess your yard as we welcome a warming season
by Helen Yoest

May kicks off the summer season for the home gardener. Garden center shelves are packed with a kaleidoscope of desirable plants. My favorites are ones that benefit wildlife as a host plant, like milkweed, coneflowers and salvia. Here’s what I’ll do this month:

Prune Spring-Blooming Shrubs

The sooner you prune, the better, for next year’s floral display. Once azaleas and rhododendrons fade or drop, trim shrubs to shape or resize. If you wait too long into summer or fall, you’ll likely remove bud sets for next spring. 

Plant Warm-Season Veggies

Plant tomato transplants now through July. (This is when I start dreaming of the first tomato sandwich of the season.) Direct sow or add transplants of broccoli, beans, cucumbers, melons and squash. Watch for pests, like cabbage worms and flea beetles; pick off as needed. Remember to water every few days, depending on rainfall.

Assess Your Yard

Before you get overzealous at the garden center, assess your yard. Know your sun exposure (full sun, part sun or shade), soil type (probably clay) and soil conditions (dry, moist, always wet). Then plant with a vision of the future: At maturity, will the plant fit the allocated space? Will the plant compete with established focal points? 

Add Summer Blooms!

Plant angelonias, begonias, coleus and geraniums. Direct sow zinnias, sunflowers, cosmos and marigolds from seed. These annuals offer four full months of color, so they’re worth the effort (deadhead for continuous blooming). For perennials, try Asiatic lily, bee balm, black-eyed Susan, blazing star or milkweed. Just be patient and remember this gardening phrase: the first year they sleep, the second year they creep, the third year they leap!

This article originally appeared in the May 2025 issue of WALTER magazine