This week on Down the Garden Path, Joanne discusses do's and don'ts for your May garden, and walks you through what to do now, what to wait on, and how to give your garden the best start for the season ahead.

Be patient and let the May garden guide your timing. May can be unpredictable, especially after a cool, wet winter. Instead of rushing into cleanup, planting, pruning, seeding, or mowing, gardeners should pay attention to soil moisture, insect activity, nighttime temperatures, and frost risk.

Focus on smart spring maintenance for perennials, shrubs, evergreens, and lawns. Learn what to clean up, what to leave alone, and what to handle carefully. Topics include: pruning spring-blooming shrubs too early, lightly cleaning up evergreens, feeding soil, waiting to seed lawns, and mowing high.

Start vegetables, herbs, annuals, and containers thoughtfully. Get excited about growing food, herbs, and seasonal containers, but with a practical approach. Topics include: hardening off vegetables, planting cool-season crops like lettuce and spinach, using herbs to attract pollinators, involving kids in gardening, and choosing larger containers so annuals can thrive through the season.

Have a topic you'd like Joanne to discuss?

Email your questions and comments to [email protected], or connect with Joanne on her website: down2earth.ca

Find Down the Garden Path on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube: @downthegardenpathpodcast.

Down the Garden Path Podcast

On Down The Garden Path, professional landscape designer Joanne Shaw discusses down-to-earth tips and advice for your plants, gardens and landscapes. As the owner of Down2Earth Landscape Design, Joanne Shaw has been designing beautiful gardens for homeowners east of Toronto for over a decade. She does her best to bring you interesting, relevant and useful topics to help you keep your garden as low-maintenance as possible.

In Down the Garden Path: A Step-By-Step Guide to Your Ontario Garden, Joanne and fellow landscape designer Matthew Dressing distill their horticultural and design expertise and their combined experiences in helping others create and maintain thriving gardens into one easy-to-read monthly reference guide. Get your copy today on Amazon.

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