As gaps go, this wasn’t a bad one in my book. Just now I seem to prefer a garden in budded transition – I think it satisfies my need for a glass is half full optimistic outlook (which may be followed all too closely by the half empty pessimism as soon as the buds open and I begin to mourn their passing). And just as the gap started to close on its own in the North Garden, we started planting annuals to help fill it up. Placing annuals is a mental toughness test for Gail and me – tempers can flare, frustration ensues, ennui sets in. Every year we have to relearn how to make the soup with “too many cooks” but the truth of the matter is we’re dependent on each other and wouldn’t want to attempt it alone. So we hemmed and hawed and placed and planted annuals (we couldn’t have done that without the volunteers!) in the annual pockets vacated by the tulips last week and in other open slivers of ground. And it will be beautiful. I’m especially proud of a little coup – a new color in the garden. We placed annuals in the Rose Garden the same morning and a tiny dahlia ordered for the Rose was switched at the last minute to the North. After all, what is a more divine complement to the prevailing french blue-y purples than a delicious apricot orange? We’re only a little nervous that it could look vile with all the pinks…

Here are a few of the May gap perennials in bloom just this week.

- Isn’t this the most OMG! iris? I swear I have never caught this bloom before and have no identification for it.  All I know is it’s one of Julie Morris’ favorites and I always wondered why.

Is your May gap filling up? Have you started planting annuals? Are you feeling pretty optimistic about it all?

Just as Gail and I teetered on the edge of overwhelmed, Cathy (Harvest Meister) and Lilah (Weed Woman) came back to lighten our load and lift our spirits -and not a moment too soon! Non-gardeners never believe me when I describe this time of year as “stressful”. I mentioned to someone that I spent the weekend “madly gardening” at home and was told that that must be an oxymoron – after all isn’t gardening supposed to be contemplative and therapeutic? Fellow gardeners, I know you know the frenzy that can overtake just now (let’s call it a Maynia). Not only is there an endless list of must-do-right-nows – like planting and digging out weeds that grew 5 feet tall all of a sudden when we were focused on planting – but we must also remember to notice and appreciate all of the returning plants and blooms – as if they’re old friends back for an annual reunion. I don’t know how many nights I’ve woken up worried that I might have missed a favorite plant’s peak (and right now they’re all my favorites). I almost snubbed the tree peony this year… I have some catching up to do with you all from before the long weekend. Here are some things I would have been disappointed to forget to welcome back and show off to you:

Hover over for captions/identification and click on for larger image.

Last Friday, Gail, Linda (one of the Rockettes) and I were “madly” planting/weeding in the North Garden when some visitors up on the north porch called our attention to the enormous red-tailed hawk taking a bath in the fountain not 30 feet from where the three of us were working. I’m so glad we didn’t miss that spectacle – although the hawk might have preferred a little privacy…

Are you feeling stressed out at all? Are you remembering to stop and contemplate the leucothoe?

After the tulips have gone by and before … everything else starts up in the North Garden, we cross The May Gap. It’s almost as if the garden is taking one last deep inhale before singing the high note of early summer – a note that sustains at least until … The July Gap. Gail and I annually focus at least 73% of the sum total of our garden design energy on creating and maintaining the look of peak bloom in that garden throughout the growing season but we are thwarted by late May. According to Gail, it was my predecessor, Sheila, who coined the phrase – probably with a sigh of resignation. There must be something that would bridge it. Perhaps we could tuck in cool season annuals – if we weren’t so consumed with moving and planting perennials in all the other gardens… Perhaps there are 3 or 4 early early blooming perennials we just haven’t thought of yet – that don’t take up too much room or are otherwise handsome for the rest of the season. Do you have any suggestions?

But just because the North Garden is on the quiet side doesn’t mean the rest of the property isn’t shouting out. Even though I’m here everyday to witness the transformation, I’m still amazed that -all of a sudden- it’s definitely fully late spring already – I would even call it early summer since Memorial Day is right around the corner. If you haven’t come to see the dove tree (Davidia involucrata) yet, ahem… what are you waiting for? It might not be as floriferous as last year but it’s still a beautiful beautiful thing. The empress trees (Paulownia tomentosa) are starting to scent the air with ode de cough syrup – good thing the blooms are gorgeous candelabras or I might not like them at all. And the tulip tree (Liriodendron tulipfera) buds will be open any day – I’m determined to catch them this year. Here is more evidence of visit worthy vistas:

And there are other May transformations around the property as well: New trees and shrubs planted, sculpture installed and gardens in the process of renewal. Every gardener knows there’s no lull now in the workload and not enough time in the day to accomplish everything on the list. Although we’ll switch gears next week from planting perennials to annuals, we can’t lose any speed. But if I happen to go quiet and miss a post or two now and then, you could call it The May Gap and know I’ll be gathering breath (and pictures) for a big shout.

Do you and your garden bridge The May Gap?

May is one of those idyllic months ranking right up there with September but, to make an inevitable play on words, there’s nothing idle about it. We are kept constantly on the move trying to stay a step ahead of the weeds (impossible) and on track with the planting (2 cart loads per day). The plants are almost alarmingly hasty in their growth and apparently I forget the sequence of events from one May to the next. I was a little shocked to see the Dove tree in bloom – and isn’t it early for the Father Hugo’s rose? It isn’t. They’re right on schedule. I’m glad that May still takes me by surprise and keeps me on my toes – I think that must be what makes it one of the most anticipated months of the year. In honor of Garden Bloggers Bloom Day in the middle of this, our host Carol’s (from May Dreams Gardens) favorite month, here’s a selection of Blithewold’s blooms (and one bud).

Hover over for captions and click on for larger image. Open your scratch-n-sniff application to view the daphne.

What have you been surprised by this month?

One of the most frequently asked questions lately is “what is that pretty groundcover that’s … everywhere?” Some people seem to ask the question with the “I want that” eye twinkle. (You don’t really want it.) Others appear to cringe as if they’re afraid to know the answer. (Be afraid. Be very afraid.) Goutweed (Aegopodium podagraria) is a scourge and a plague on all our houses – if we have been unlucky enough to inherit it. Bishop’s weed was introduced in this country by early European settlers as an ornamental groundcover and quickly established itself as a weedy invasive capable of out-competing our natives. (It is described only as “weedy” on RI Natural History Survey Invasives List because it hasn’t escaped cultivated areas here. Yet. It is listed as an invasive on Connecticut’s Invasive Plants List.)

It is pretty, no doubt about that and some nurseries actually sell an even more attractive variegated variety (Aegopodium podagraria ‘Variegatum’) – which, like many variegateds may be slightly slower to establish but may also at any time revert to plain green and perform a hostile takeover of your garden and the neighboring woods. In the AHS A-Z Encyclopedia the plant size is listed as 12-24″ x indefinite. That kind of says it all.

Goutweed is blanketed throughout Blithewold, particularly in the Bosquet and continually inserts itself in the gardens where we declare War. When the Idea Beds in the Display Garden were first designed (before my time – and before our current redesign of that garden) the beds spent an entire growing season beneath heavy black plastic before anything could be planted. The North Garden was entirely un-planted and replanted (also before my time) to remove the weed from infested perennials and volunteers combed roots out of the beds. And still it emerges where it isn’t welcome. The roots, bright white and as easily recognizable as the equally obnoxious bright orange bittersweet, break with the merest tug and resprout. For that reason it is uncompostable and evicted from the property.

Fred (dir. of hort.) and Dan have been waging their own war with the goutweed. Each summer they weedwhack it all before it can set seed – the flowers are pretty little white lace flower umbels – and wherever they’ve been able to beat back the goutweed, they plant creeping myrtle a.k.a. periwinkle (Vinca minor) and other less aggressive groundcovers, like this patch of native creeping phlox (Phlox stolonifera) and foam flower (Tiarella cordifolia) behind the summerhouse.

Groundcovers are generally thuggish by nature – we want them to be to a certain extent – and goutweed is certainly not the worst of what can be found infesting the property – we’ve got English ivy and lily-of-the-valley too. And we all have different demons. I could tolerate the spread of creeping phlox for instance, and others I know abhor it as a menace. Do you have goutweed in your garden? Are you plagued by it or something else? How do you manage your overtakers?