Late May in the Garden
Posted on Monday, May 25, 2026 · Leave a Comment
Candleabra primroses delight me each year starting in late May
Asking me to name my favorite flower is, perhaps, like asking you to name your favorite child or dog. But late May brings one of my top picks: the candelabra primrose (Primula japonica). It sends up a flower stalk with a circle of florets, then it grows a few inches and sends out more blossoms, getting taller and blooming sequentially for nearly a month. They grow best in deep, rich, moist soil in partial shade and ideally under old apple trees.
Late May will also produce early peonies I love including two part- shade peonies, Paeonia obovata and P. tenuifolia. The latter is also known as the fernleaf peony for its finely cut foliage; the blossoms are a deep red. Neither are common in garden centers, but keep an out for them.
Spring is a good time to improve your soil. Most commercial farmers grow food by adding chemical fertilizer to the soil before planting. I am an organic gardener, meaning I do not use pesticides nor do I use any chemical fertilizer.
Peony Woodland (P. obovata) with red buds of the fernleaf peony 002
Chemical fertilizers are safe to use, but only provide three of the 17 elements needed by plants to grow and thrive. Granted, most of those elements are needed in very small quantities and may already be in the soil, but I want to provide my plants with the equivalent of a full 5-course meal, not a bowl of white rice.
Chemical fertilizers only contain nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), potassium (K), and lots of filler. A 5-10-5 fertilizer is 5% N, 10% P, 5% K; the rest -80%- is filler. Nitrogen in the form of nitrate and ammonia ions is used by plants to make proteins, fueling green growth. Phosphorous promotes growth of roots, blooming, seeds and fruits. Potassium is important for growing thick cell walls to survive cold and excess heat.
Plants also need other elements in order to thrive: calcium (for cell metabolism), magnesium (for chlorophyll needed for photosynthesis), sulfur (for making proteins and fats). Also needed are micronutrients like iron, chlorine, manganese, zinc, copper, boron, molybdenum and nickel.
Pro-Gro Organic Fertilizer is a slow release fertilizer.
All those elements above are found in organic fertilizers like Pro-Gro, Gro-Tone and others. And while most chemical fertilizer provide water-soluble elements for quick absorption, organic fertilizers are mostly slow-release, providing key elements over a period of months, or even years. Most contain things like cotton seed meal, kelp meal, ground peanut shells and ground oyster shells.
So what can you do to improve your soil? Add compost. Don’t buy just a bag or two of compost and think it will improve your whole vegetable garden with some left over for new perennials. Borrow a pick-up truck and get a “scoop” from a front-end loader at your garden center. Or get it delivered. Alternatively, you can buy aged manure from your local dairy farmer. Even aged manure will have some weed seeds, but it will add good organic material that will be used by your plants.
Why is compost so good? Well-made compost is full of microorganisms that will work with your plants. Many produce organic acids that help to dissolve minerals from fine stone particles in the soil and make those minerals available to your plants. Compost is, or should be, biologically active: full of living bacteria and fungi. And it will improve soil texture making root growth easier for your plants.
Our soils were created back during the last ice age when glaciers a mile thick ground up bedrock, making sand and even the finer bits of stone that are in clay and loam. Fully 50% of all soil is made of ground up rocks. The rest? Anywhere from 1% to 8% is organic matter, and the rest – nearly 50% of soil by volume – is air. Oxygen is absorbed by root hairs from the air in the soil.
Two other key ingredients do not come from the soil. Plants get carbon, a major part of all plants, from carbon dioxide that is in our air. Nitrogen is in our air, but most nitrogen used by plants comes from decayed plant or animal material – or is made in a chemical factory and sold as a fertilizer.
I highly recommend getting your soil tested every 3 to 5 years. Each state university offers a service for gardeners and farmers. It will tell you soil pH (a measure of acidity), soil type, levels of some soil minerals and the percentage of organic matter. It will offer suggestions on what to add to your soil, though different plants have different needs. You should strive to have 4% or more organic matter in your soil.
Testing drainage is simple. Dig a hole, fill it up, see how long it takes to drain.
You can perform a simple test to see how well your soil holds water or drains. Dig a hole 24 inches wide and 8 inches deep with sloping sides. Fill it with your hose and time how long it takes to drain. Sandy soil will drain almost immediately. Clay soil will hold water for several hours, even overnight. Good loam might take an hour or two, depending on how much rain you’ve had recently.
Adding compost will help heavy clay or sandy soils will help them considerably. Soil texture and the ability to hold some water but draining well is important to most plants. Compost does both.
Improving your soil takes years, even decades. Yes, I do use some slow-release organic fertilizer at planting time, but my real success has come from years of adding compost.
Keeping a Record of What’s Blooming in the Garden
Posted on Monday, May 25, 2026 · Leave a Comment
Double bloodroot spreads by root not seed. A few plants have spread in the past 15 years or so.
I decided this year to do a better job of keeping track of what plants are blooming when, and photographing them. I encourage you to do the same – we all forget what we have from time to time. And next winter we’ll be able to enjoy our gardens.
My favorites right now? Double bloodroot – they’re like miniature double white peonies. They have four strings of chromosomes instead of two, so they are sterile, and bloom for up to 2 weeks. Ordinary bloodroot only blooms until it is pollinated.
Then there is my new Merrill magnolia hybrid I planted last year. It replaces one that succumbed to a fungus after 21 years and always bloomed on my birthday in late April. This one opened its buds on May 2 with large double white blossoms. It’s fabulous!
We plant lots of bulbs each year. A recent addition to our crop of daffodils is one called ‘Thalia’, which I just love. It is one of the few that will thrive in soil that stays consistently moist. The stems are tall, the blossoms are nearly white with short cups. It seems many bulbs produce more than one blossom stem. It blooms in early May for me.
Thalia is one of the few daffodils that will thrive in damp or wet soil
My favorite gardening centers are open for the year, and I’m visiting them all to see what might seduce me. I am always looking for new perennials but I try to hold off buying any until I know I have space for them. But that can be tough to do.
I start my own tomato plants from seed indoors, and some flowers, but have bought some vegetable starts. I just don’t have the time and space to start everything under lights. If you are buying packs of cold hardy plants like Brussels sprouts, broccoli or kale, there is one key question to ask at this time of year: “Are these hardened off yet?” Seedlings raised in a greenhouse can get sun- and/or wind-burned in your garden if you plant them outdoors right away and they have not yet been hardened off.
To harden off young plants, it is best to start them off with just a few hours of morning sun, then some afternoon sun, and finally all day sun. When I harden off my tomatoes, I take a full week to do so. And it’s worth the wait, sunburned leaves will drop off and die. Your plants will recover, but they will lose a week or two of good growth.
May is the month for weeding. If you start off with a weed-free garden, you will have much less work later on, especially if you mulch well. Get the annual weeds before they develop big root systems. Get perennials like dandelions now, before their roots seeds go deeper and are harder to pull. Moist soil makes weeding easier, so go out after a spring rain.
CobraHead weeder
My favorite weeding tool is the CobraHead weeder. It is a single-tine tool that easily gets under a weed and allows you to loosen the soil and to pull up from under the weed while you tug from above. It is also great for teasing out long creeping roots.
For really deep rooted weeds like burdock, I use a garden fork to loosen the soil down a foot or more. I plunge it all the way in, then tip it back. I do that in 2 or more spots around the weed if it is huge. Then I pull s-l-o-w-l-y.
I use a similar technique for pulling invasive shrubs like multiflora rose, honeysuckles, barberry or buckthorn. Pulling them and getting all the roots is tough – the roots tend to break off. But if you are as determined as I am, a CobraHead is good for teasing out smaller broken sections of root.
Buckthorns are, arguably, the most difficult invasive to kill. Cutting them back will stimulate the roots to send out new shoots all around the tree. But you can kill buckthorn by double-girdling the trunk. Take a small pruning saw and cut through the bark all the way around the trunk. Don’t cut into the hardwood, just cut the bark. Then go 12 inches higher up, and do it again.
Dandelions and other deep-rooted weeds pull best when soil is moist.
Girdling a buckthorn is a slow death: you are interrupting the flow of sugars from the leaves to the roots, which slowly starve to death. I have done this in winter, and the tree leafed out and seemed normal that spring and the next spring. The third spring it never leafed out – it was dead, and did not sent up any new sprouts around the tree.
Your last chore for now is to fix those dreaded bare spots in the lawn. Buy some new seed, if yours is more than a year old. Use your garden rake to loosen the soil, then top dress with some good compost and work it in. Sprinkle seed by hand – no need for one of those fancy walk-behind seed spreaders. Just fling it gently until it is evenly spread. Don’t be stingy.
Grass seeds need some sunlight to germinate. To cover the seeds a little bit, take a lawn rake and turn it upside down; drag the tines over the area being treated. That will mix the seed in to the soil, but not bury it deeply. Finally you should pack down the seeds with a roller, or use a tamper. Or put down a wide board and walk on it. Make sure the soil doesn’t dry out after planting. I cover it with a very light layer of straw to help keep it from drying out.
Yes, spring is a busy time for us gardeners. But I love it: the colors, the smells – and even the hard work.
Late Spring Chores
Posted on Saturday, April 25, 2026 · Leave a Comment
Spring arrives in New England in fits in starts and starts: Hot and sunny one day, chilly and drizzly the next. Maybe even a few flurries to outrage the impatient gardener. But there is much that can be done in late April, even on a rainy day.
Oiled tools drying in the sun
I much prefer tools with wooden handles: if treated properly they will last your entire lifetime. Every year or two I clean up and oil the handles of my garden tools, which keeps the wood supple. I‘ve got tools with wood handles I’ve used regularly for over 40 years, and some from my grandfather that are more than 75 years old.
First I clean up the handles by rubbing with fine steel wool or, if very rough, with 100 grit sandpaper. Then I wipe them down with a scrap of a towel. Finally I use a brush to paint them with boiled linseed oil. I then let them dry in the sun or in the barn it’s a rainy day, and wipe them down the next day.
Shovels should be sharpened from time to time. Get a wide, medium-rough flat file and push it firmly across the shovel’s edge on the backside of the blade. Take long, slow strikes but do not saw back and forth with your file. Look carefully at the angle it came with, and try to mimic that angle with your file. A sharp shovel is much more efficient than a dull one. But it’s not a good idea to sharpen the blade until it’s knife-sharp. It will dull quickly if you do. Sharpening a dull shovel is not quick work,
Soil thermometers are useful tools for deciding when to plant
Impatient to get things growing in the vegetable garden? Peas, spinach, arugula and lettuce are very cold-hardy and can be planted early by seed– even if frost will still occur. Soil temperatures of 40 degrees are adequate for germination of them, but I think 50 degrees is better. For most seeds, I prefer to wait until the soil hits 50 degrees or more. I worry seeds will rot if the soil is too cold and wet. That goes for potatoes and onions, too. Cukes, squash, pepper and tomato seedlings I don’t plant until June.
Soil thermometers look like little probes with a dial on top, something like the one you poke in a turkey to see when it’s done. Garden centers sell them. If you get one, poke it down four inches to get your reading.
If your soil was covered with leaves or straw for the winter, rake that off your planting beds now so that the sun will hit your soil directly and warm it up. Mulch keeps the soil cool. If there are weeds coming up, pull them as soon as you can – no sense letting them get a head start on your plants.
This is also a good time to look for invasive plants on your property. For me, the cast of characters includes bush honeysuckle, barberry, buckthorn and multiflora rose. If you have a Norway maple, you probably have lots of new seedlings from it that are easy to pull.
You can get a list of invasives from your state on-line, but I found the Vermont Invasive Plants list is best – it includes just the 12 most common, along with pictures, so it’s easier to use.
Many invasives leaf out early and drop their leaves late in the fall. That gives them an advantage over many natives. Honeysuckle puts out greenery in mid-April for me. Burning bush holds its red leaves late in the fall, so it’s easier to find small ones then.
Honeysuckles have opposite branching; they leaf out early
Although not easy, digging out invasives is generally the best way to control them. Cutting them down usually does not kill them. Buckthorn is the worst: cut one to the ground, and a dozen will grow from the roots. If you can double-girdle all the stems down low, it will die after 2 winters. Basically, you’re starving the roots from the nutrition produced by the leaves.
Potting mix is readily available at all garden centers, big box stores, and even some mini-marts. But if you are going to fill up lots of flower pots, you can save money by making your own.
If you never emptied you pots and window boxes last fall, you can reuse it this year. First pull the dead plants, and dump the used potting soil into a pile. Then make up some new potting soil and mix it 50-50 with your old potting soil.
To make potting soil, mix add equal parts coir or peat moss, compost and perlite (which looks like crumbled Styrofoam but is actually super-heated volcanic minerals) to it in roughly equal quantities in a wheelbarrow until mostly full. Stir well. Add half a cup of a slow-release organic fertilizer like Pro-Gro or Plant-Tone and mix well. It is best to water the peat moss or coir before using as it can be very dry.
When I make potting soil, I don’t measure things exactly. I probably use more compost than perlite or coir. If you have a good source of mature compost, you can save money and add good microorganisms to the soil. The finished product should be fluffy and not quick to clump up when you grab a handful of it. But if you are only going to use a few pots, just buy a bag of potting soil.
So don’t get discouraged by a few cold days now. Summer is on the way, so get ready.
Early Spring in the Garden
Posted on Saturday, April 25, 2026 · Leave a Comment
Primula vulgaris in early April
This was supposed to be my very last gardening column, but (spoiler alert) it is not. I started writing a gardening column in 1998 and wrote weekly for 25 years. Then in late 2023 I dropped down to once a month. I liked the extra time and freedom it gave me to do other things.
Recently I have been tempted to say” Adios, my friends” once I turned 80 this month (same day as Will Shakespeare, different year). But I have decided that I will continue on – as long as I can and still have readers who tell me they learn from the column. And so long as local newspapers, like this one, keep on being willing and able to pay me. Thanks to all of you for your enthusiasm and support.
Leatherwood blossoms
Despite occasional snows, our gardens are awake in April. Flowering bulbs abound: snowdrop and winter aconite have been blooming since March; early daffodils, glory of the snow, scilla (also called Siberian squill) and crocus are plentiful. Trees are awakening, too: spring witch hazel is blooming and leatherwood (Dirca palustris) will bloom by the middle of the month.
Spring is good time to determine where you should plant bulbs, come fall. Get some plant tags and place them where nothing is coming up, places that would look good with some daffodils or snowdrops. Come fall, most of us cannot remember exactly where we have clusters of spring-blooming bulbs.
Bulb flowers can last decades. My family had hundreds of daffodils that bloomed along the paths through our woods in Connecticut. The high canopy of mature maples was quite dense, but the daffies got enough sunshine to re-charge their energy before the maple leaves were big. I have some clumps of daffodils I moved from there, some 40 years ago. FYI: Planting bulbs under evergreens is not good idea.
Don’t leave stubs, they have to heal back to branch collar
The timing of spring clean-up depends on the weather, and where you live. We don’t cut back many of our tall perennials and grasses in the fall as they offer food for seed-eating birds, and some harbor eggs or larvae of pollinators in their hollow stems. We’ll wait until the weather is consistently in the 50’s before we clean up and remove dead stems so insects can hatch. We’ll rake and remove debris from mid-to late-April.
April is a good month for pruning fruit trees. Although there are entire books about pruning, the rules are fairly simple:
- Never remove more than 20% or 25% of the live, leaf-bearing branches. This may mean spreading out your pruning over 2- or 3-years if a tree is badly overgrown. Pile up your branches as you work, so you can estimate more easily how much you have cut off.
- Don’t leave short stubs of branches, cut back to the swollen area called the branch collar. This is where it heals.
- Remove all dead branches. They don’t count in that 25% threshold.
- If two branches are rubbing, crossing or fighting for sunshine, remove one. Don’t be afraid to cut out large branches.
- Remove all “water sprouts” which are thin, pencil-like sprouts growing straight up. Do this every year. Remove any root sprouts, too.
- Remove branches pointed toward the middle of the tree.
April is a good month for planning what you want to grow this year, and what you want to eliminate. I know people who refuse to cut down trees or dig out shrubs. Not me. If a woody plant is not performing well or is difficult to keep looking nice, I remove it. It opens up a place for something new.
I want peaches like these
This year Cindy and I plan to plant two more peach trees. I planted a good-sized “Contender ” peach in 2021, and although it has produced some peaches, they have not been very tasty. So this year I will plant a ‘Reliant’ peach and a ‘Red Haven’. Both are peaches that are tasty and hardy here in our Zone 5 garden. And I hope to convince Cindy we should remove the ‘Contender’. She is much less ruthless than I am.
Pay attention to what pleases you in the perennial garden as spring moves along. Last year I planted a few Common Primroses (Primula vulgaris). They started blooming at the beginning of April this year, a striking bright yellow. I will plant half a dozen more since they bloom so early. They prefer part shade, rich soil and plenty of moisture. Another early primrose is the Drumstick Primrose (P. denticulata). It sends up a purple, blue or white cluster of florets vaguely in the shape of a chicken drumstick.
Drumstick primula is an early spring bloomer
If you have a good location for primroses, think about obtaining some Candelabra Primroses (P. japonica). These beauties bloom on 2-foot stalks with rings of small trumpets in magenta, pink or white. They grow and produce a new set of flowers each week for 4 to 6 weeks starting in mid-May for me. And best yet: they produce lots of seeds and spread quite rapidly. They do best in rich, moist soil beneath mature apple trees. Buy three plants and before you know it, you’ll have a dozen, then three dozen. Twenty five years ago I was given seven plants, now I have more than 500!
I firmly believe that gardening keeps me fit and young. I always have to survive the winter to see what blooms well in the spring and beyond!
You can reach
Henry with comments and questions at PO Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 03746 or by email at
henry.homeyer@comcast.net.
Starting Plants from Seed
Posted on Wednesday, March 25, 2026 · Leave a Comment
It seems to me that the prices of many things have gone up significantly in recent times. One way to combat that, as a gardener, is to start plants by seed instead of buying plants that someone else as started, watered and mothered for months.
Many gardeners enjoy starting lettuce or carrots by seed outdoors, but few of us start perennial or biennial flowers by seed. Why is that? Because we want results right away. This summer we want gorgeous new varieties of purple cone flower, black-eyed Susans or Shasta daisies. Alas, most perennials and biennials will develop into handsome plants this year if started by seed, but few will blossom before next year.
Peonies with foxglove
Biennials, by definition, do not bloom in their first year. They grow foliage this year, send up a flower stalk next year, and then, having produced seed, they die. Probably the best known of these are foxgloves, specifically Digitalis purpurea. It has a flower stalk that is 18 to 60 inches tall, adorned with blooms in pink and purple and shaped a bit like the finger of a glove. One named variety, “Foxy” will bloom late in its first year if started early enough. Foxglove blossoms bloom in sequence along their stem over several weeks.
Foxgloves do well in part shade and like lightly moist soil. They are easy to propagate: I just cut a stalk that has finished blooming, and shake the small seeds over bare, lightly cultivated soil and pat down without covering. There are also yellow foxgloves that are fully perennial (Digitalis lutea).
Hollyhocks are also terrific biennial flowers, though some books list them as half-hardy perennials. These beauties can grow to be up to six-feet tall and bloom for a long time. If you cut off the stem as soon as it finishes blooming, sometimes you can confuse the poor thing – it doesn’t know if it produced seed or not. So it may send up another flower stem next year.
Canadian sanguisorba in November
Perennials generally live for several to many years. The genus “Sanguisorba” includes several species of perennial flowers, all of which are delightful. The common name for these is burnet. “Sanguisorba canadensis” is our naïve species, a tall, late flowering wetland species, and is called Canadian burnet. I’ve had a big clump for 20 years at least, and love its fuzzy white pendulous blossoms. Pollinators love it in the fall.
My favorite of the burnets is Sanguisorba hakusanensis or Korean Burnet, one called “Lilac Squirrel”. Why that name? The blossoms are pink to lilac in color and hang down like the squirrel tails attached to bicycle handlebars in the 1950’s. Less tall than our native, it does need staking as it can get to be 2- to 4-feet tall. I have found it easy to propagate by seed, and blooms in its second year. I collect and grow all species of burnets, which can grow from miniatures to big bush clumps of gorgeous foliage 5-feet tall and 5-feet wide, but have not collected seed from them – yet.
Lilac squirrel Snguisorba blossoms are delightful to touch and see
Hosta are great foliage plant that do best in shady areas in rich soils. If you collect seed from your favorite hostas be forewarned that most hostas are hybrids and the seeds will not produce plants identical to their seed-producing parent plant. I only planted them by seed once, and I did it with seed from one called “Hosta sieboldii”.The parent plant is known for having variegated leaves, but mine produces all-green leaves. Still, I’ve had that clump for 40 years, and it gives me pleasure every time I walk past it.
Dividing hostas is an easy way to get more. 005
Generally it is best to give hosta seeds a cold period of 6 to 8 weeks in your refrigerator. This is true for many varieties of seed, so a good practice for all. Hosta seeds may need some sunshine on them to germinate, so cover them with a very thin layer of soil in their starting pots, or with vermiculite. Mature hostas are easy to divide to get more plants.
What about starting trees from seed? It’s not hard: blue jays and squirrels do it all the time – they bury them, and forget where they put them, just like us with the car keys. Although you can plant tree seeds, I recommend just looking for first-year seedlings planted by your wildlife. Of course, this works best with native trees like oaks and maples.
Acorns that float are not likely to germinate so throw them out and plant the ones that sink
Last year I dug up half a dozen sprouted acorns and moved them to an area that needed more trees to screen my property from the road. It was a dry summer and I was less than fully vigilant, so some of them died. But there will be others I can dig up this year. Remember: watering is key for any first year planting.
So here is my challenge: Go to your local garden center and buy seed packets for three perennials or biennials. Start them either indoors under lights, or later, outdoors. Buy things that you like and want several plants, or even a bed full of them. You can fill in a bed of first year perennials with some annuals that will bloom this year. Please email me how that works out for you if you do so.
Lastly, it might better to plant flower seeds in small pots rather than in the soil, as it can be difficult to identify them when weed seeds are growing around them. Or plant them in a perfect circle to help identify them. Good luck!
Reach
Henry by e-mail at
henry.homeyer@comcast.net or by snail mail at P.O. Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 03746. His column appears here monthly.
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