May Garden Tips

Plant

• Heat-tolerant color in sun and shade. Include lantanas, cosmos, purple fountain

Grass, Dahlberg daisy, melampodium, zinnias, coleus, begonias, caladiums,

cleome, celosia, hibiscus, pentas, copper plant, firebush, moss rose,

purslane.

Perennials from 6 in. and 1 gallon pots

• New lawns from sod, seed, plugs or by hydromulching.

• Heat-tolerant vegetables early in month: southern peas, sweet potatoes

(sandy soils only), okra.

• Herbs into landscape and vegetable garden

 

Prune

• Mow lawn on regular intervals to encourage low, dense growth.

• Remove low hanging branches from trees if excessive shade is threatening

your lawn grass.

• Spring blooming shrubs and vines by early May to restore good form and encourage

regrowth this season.

• Thin peach and plum fruit so that they will be 5 or 6 inches apart on the

branches. Heavy fruit crops will lead to very small fruit size and poor quality.

• Pinch growing tips from copper plants, coleus, fall asters, Mexican bush sage

and other plants that tend to grown tall and lanky.

• Remove flower buds from coleus, caladiums, lamb’s ear, santolina and dusty

miller. When these plants bloom, new growth stops.

 

Fertilize

• Turf, landscape plants with quality, high nitrogen lawn fertilizer. Follow feeding

with deep watering. Use same high nitrogen fertilizer for flowers, vegetables

unless soil test suggests otherwise.

• Use iron additive along with sulfur soil acidifier to correct iron chlorosis in alkaline

soils. Iron deficiency shows up as yellowed leaves with dark green veins, most prominent on the newest growth first.