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May Garden Calendar Hello Sunshine!
The biggest change in the May Garden Calendar is that the rainfall effectively stops – you might get a sprinkle or two, during the beginning of the month, but after the fifth, you'll probably be watering your garden at least once per day.
The May Garden Calendar is the peak growing month in California and key to the agricultural sector of the state.
It's also key to getting the most out of your garden.
To get the most out of this peak growing time of the year, be sure to fertilize early and often – and to dampen the ground after fertilizing to let your garden take it up as quickly as possible.
Pruning Chores
The May Garden Calendar is the time to prune back your spring bloomers, and is the perfect time to trim back your azaleas, which should be aggressively sculpted to give you the flower arrangement you want next year. Lilacs will also need to be trimmed, and should be pruned just below the spent flowers.
If you planned fruit trees in your landscape design, pruning now will help prevent "June drops" – most fruit trees will bud more fruits than they can properly mature; the early fruit drops at the end of the spring.
If you want to maximize the size of your fruit come fall, the trick is to thin the early fruits now – trim them about three to six inches apart for small fruits, like nectarines, and about six to eight inches apart for larger fruit like pears and apples.
This has two benefits – larger and tastier fruits – and not risking the breaking of branches due to overburdening.
In general, the May Garden Calendar is the best time of year for "maintenance pruning" and trimming. The major work of pruning is best done earlier in the year when plants are dormant. Even so, when you're pruning and breaking out the shears, remember to dispose of everything you snip off properly; no need to let fungi or insects have a place to do their work from.
Watering Time Is Here
Now that California's rainy season has ended, most lawns and gardens need regular watering in the May garden calendar. We recommend about an inch of water per week, and up to two inches per week in dry spots. It's when you're watering that you'll appreciate the forethought put into getting "low water usage" tolerant grasses. Ways to tell if you're not getting enough water are easy – brown patches on the lawn mean not enough water.
When you're checking to see how well the water is penetrating into the lawn, use a large bladed screwdriver – you should be able to jab it six inches or so into properly irrigated turf.
If you can't, you need to irrigate more. If you're using a sprinkler system, remember the "everything gets wet" rule – your sprinkler heads should be getting each of the other sprinkler heads wet – total coverage is needed.
And with watering, it's also time to mow the lawn. Mow down to an inch or an inch and a half – the aim here is to keep the lawn short enough that the germinating grass seed will spread and fill in small bits of bare earth, giving you a nice, dense, comfortable turf to work with.
When watering your flowering beds, remember that the plants grab water from the ground; water the ground instead of the leaves (using a very dilute solution of dish soap on a sprayer can clean dust and mites off of leaves instead). Watering the leaves gives fungal parasites a nurturing and moist place to live, the last thing you want to encourage.
Benefits of Fertilizer
Like most things in gardening, you're fertilizing now to see the benefits later on. The May Garden Calendar is the time to use acid food on camellias, gardenias, and citrus. Be sure to follow up with fixed (liquid) iron a week or so later.
With the sun and irrigation patterns, it's important to fertilize your lawn as well.
High nitrogen fertilizers will help your lawn compete with fungus infestations; ammonium sulfate is a good general fertilizer for this duty.
Remember that weed-and-feed products are overkill – use them only if you're getting a severe weed jungle; use spot sprays instead. Remember not to use spot sprays with Dicamba if you have trees in the yard; their roots will absorb the weed killer and it will harm their leaves.
If you have found this May Garden Calendar useful then we encourage you to subscribe to our free newsletter so that you can be notified prior to the next calendar's release. Plus with each issue you will find lots of tips and advice on everything from landscape design to picking the
perfect barbecue grill.
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The May Garden Calendar is the peak growing month in California and key to the agricultural sector of the state. 
If you planned fruit trees in your landscape design, pruning now will help prevent "June drops" – most fruit trees will bud more fruits than they can properly mature; the early fruit drops at the end of the spring. 
When you're checking to see how well the water is penetrating into the lawn, use a large bladed screwdriver – you should be able to jab it six inches or so into properly irrigated turf. 
With the sun and irrigation patterns, it's important to fertilize your lawn as well. 
