When you hear quail whistling in the woods, look for tent caterpillars in the trees.
When goslings leave the nest, mulberry season peaks.
When you see the first monarch butterfly, watch for young coyotes to come after your chickens and new lambs.
When May apples have fruit the size of a cherry and honeysuckle flowers have all come down, look for cucumber beetles to reach the economic threshold on the farm.
When fireflies light up the night, chinch bugs hatch in the lawn, and powdery mildew becomes a problem in the garden phlox.
When yucca plants send up their stalks, young blackbirds leave their nests, and nettles have grown up to your chest. Then, Japanese beetles start to attack roses and ferns. Azalea bark scale eggs hatch, too!
When pie cherries ripen, painted turtles and box turtles lay their eggs, and giant (but harmless) stag beetles prowl the grass.
When the oakleaf hydrangea produces its first blooms, then fall webworms and mimosa webworm eggs are hatching.
When the first chiggers bite, all the soybeans are in the ground (except in the wettest years).
When day lilies bloom by the roadsides, watch for winter wheat to turn a soft, pale green.
When catalpa trees come into bloom, then look for the first raspberries to redden.
When bud clusters form on the milkweeds and hosta, then oaks, osage orange and black walnut trees have set their fruit, and cherry picking is in full swing across the nation’s heartland.
When black-eyed Susans flower across the northern states, then the wheat harvest is over in the Gulf region.
When long seedpods have formed on the locust trees, then annual cicadas will soon start to chant.
When you see the first black walnuts on the ground, then you know that this year's ducklings and goslings are nearly full grown.
When great mullein blooms in the fields, then mock orange petals have all fallen and water willows are blossoming beside the streams.
When you see elderberry bushes in full flower and cottonwood cotton floating in the wind, then the first chiggers will be bite you in the woods and garden.
When you see young acorns forming, then almost all the winter wheat will be headed and about a third of the crop will be turning in the Ohio Valley.
When all of the soybeans are planted and the black raspberries are ripening in the lower Midwest, then walleye fishing is at its best in Lake Erie.
When the tall spikes of the yucca are in bloom, then Japanese beetles will be invading the flowers.
When you see damselflies out along the waterways, cherries will be ripe for pie, and the second cut of alfalfa will be underway.
When milkweed and pokeweed flower, then the first winter wheat will be ripe.
When the first Canadian thistles go to seed, quail will be mating along the fencerows.
When you see lizard’s tail in flower along the rivers and lakes, and when the black raspberry season ends along the roadsides, then go looking for corn borers in the corn.
When enchanter’s nightshade blooms in the woods, then the first soybeans are blossoming, too.
When black-eyed Susans bloom along the freeways, then turtles will be hatching near the rivers and lakes.
When you see blackberries setting fruit, then the earliest field corn will start to tassel and the canola harvest will be underway.
When you see green berries on the poison ivy, then you know that the days will soon be shortening.
When you hear the first cicadas sing, then May apples will be ready for May-apple jam.
When the first katydid appears at your porch light, then finish your first cut of alfalfa and start bringing in the wheat.
When touch-me-nots bloom in the woods, then the best bullhead and crappie fishing ends for the year.
When potato leaf hoppers are getting bad in the alfalfa, look for blight on the tomatoes as you stake your plants.
When blueberries ripen, then cottony maple scale eggs hatch on the silver maples.
When long seedpods have formed on the locust trees, then chinch bugs start leaving brown patches in your lawn. Watering the lawn frequently allows normal growth to keep pace with insect damage.
When the first apple and cherry tree leaves become yellow and drift to the ground, alewives head back to sea from their estuaries along the Atlantic.
When midsummer road kills increase, expect thunderstorms and intense Dog Day heat.
When mimosa webworms appear on locust trees, potato leafhoppers reach serious levels in some alfalfa.
When teasel flowers along the roadsides and wood nettle blooms in the woods, then bagworms attack arborvitae, euonymus, juniper, linden, maple, and fir. Root diseases stalk the soybeans, and the wheat still standing in the fields may suffer from rust, powdery mildew, head scab, and glume blotch.
When elderberry flowers turn to fruit, then giant green June beetles appear in the garden and poisonous white snakeroot is budding in the woods. That’s the time to dig your garlic before the heads break apart. Plant your autumn turnips right afterwards.
When timothy is bearded with seeds, then the first rough-winged swallows migrate south.
When the rose of Sharon flowers, the summer apple harvest will soon be in full swing.
When the roadside grasses turn like the winter wheat, look for local sweet corn in the market.
When the first fourth of the oats crop is ripe, then spring's goslings and ducklings are almost all grown up.

THE SEASONAL CALENDAR
The Week the Canopy Closes
Not long after peonies come in and the exotic flowers of the yellow poplar open, just past the prime of poppies, the last leaves of the canopy cover the land. When the high foliage is complete, then the wild multiflora roses and the domestic tea roses bloom, the last osage and black walnut flowers fall, clustered snakeroot hangs with pollen in the shade, and parsnips, goatsbeard and sweet clovers take over the roadsides. Rare swamp valerian blossoms by the water, and common timothy pushes up from its sheaths in all the alleyways.
Delicate Miami mist, pink yarrow, yellow moneywort, silver lamb’s ear and the rough Canadian thistle bloom. Wild onions and domestic garlic get their seed bulbs. Poison ivy and tiger lilies and catalpas are budding. Daisies, golden Alexander, groundsel, sweet rocket and common fleabane still hold in the pastures, but garlic mustard and ragwort are almost gone. The bright violet heads of chives droop and decay. Tall buttercups recede into the wetlands. Petals of mock orange, honeysuckle, scarlet pyrethrum, blue lupine and Dutch iris fall to the garden floor.
The columbines unravel as astilbe reddens. Nettles and grasses tangle with catchweed. Giant yucca plants send up their firm stalks not only in Kentucky but also deep in the Caribbean. July’s wild petunia foliage is a foot tall. May apples have fruit the size of cherries.

The Week of the Golden Parsnips
When the canopy has closed above the woodland wildflowers, when winter wheat is a soft pale green, and the clovers and vetches are all coming in, then it’s the best time of year for golden parsnip blossoms throughout the countryside.
Catalpas and privets and hawthorns and pink spirea bloom at parsnip time, and the number of fireflies grows in proportion to the flowers on the day lilies. The first nodding thistle, the first chicory, first daisy fleabane, the first great mullein, the first Asiatic lily, and the first tall meadow rue open. The first raspberry reddens, and the first orange trumpet creeper blows. Bindweeds and sweet peas color the fences with pastels.
The peak of the parsnips in the fields is the high time for the wetlands’ poison hemlock and angelica. In the shade, poison ivy, fire pink, and honewort are flowering. At the edge of the forest, wild plants include blue-eyed grass, silver yarrow, yellow sedum, bright moneywort, fire pink, daisies, yellow sweet clover, wild roses, wild iris, dock, and smooth brome grass. In the garden, the blue veronica, yellow coreopsis, deep purple loosestrife, and the first wave of the floribunda roses come into flower.
In the middle of parsnip week, oaks and black walnut trees and osage orange have set their fruit. There are bud clusters on the milkweeds, buds on the delicate touch-me-nots, buds on the giant blue hostas, buds on the yucca, the purple coneflowers, the mallow, the balloon flower and the gayfeather. Wild strawberries are red.
As the morning birdsong quiets, young blackbirds join their parents to harvest the ripening cherries and mulberries. Cucumber beetles come to the pumpkins, squash, gourds and cucumbers. Painted turtles and box turtles are out laying eggs. The fearsome (but harmless) stag beetle waddles across your porch after dark.
The end of parsnip week is the last week for sweet rockets. Chickweed dies back, exhausted and matted. May apple foliage is yellowing. Jack-in-the-pulpits are wilting, and brown seeds drop from the small-flowered crowfoot.

Black Raspberry Week
At the end of early summer, the days are the longest of the year, and mulberries and black raspberries are sweetest. Milkweed beetles look for milkweed flowers on the longest days; giant cecropia moths emerge. The first monarch butterfly caterpillars eat the carrot tops.
Damselflies and daddy longlegs are everywhere when black raspberries come in. Mosquitoes, chiggers, and ticks have reached their summer strength. Giant black cricket hunters hunt crickets in the garden.
Two out of three parsnips, angelicas, and hemlocks are going to seed. Some multiflora roses and Japanese honeysuckles are dropping petals. But wingstem and tall coneflower stalks are five feet high. Virginia creeper is flowering. Canadian thistles and nodding thistles are at their best. Blackberries have set fruit. The very first trumpet vines sport bright red-orange trumpets, and the first Deptford pink and first great mullein come into bloom.
Orchard grass is brown and old, English rye grass full bloom, exotic bottle grass late bloom, brome grass very late, some timothy still tender. More Asiatic lilies are coming in now, first the orange, then the pink. Yellow primroses, foxglove, pink and yellow achillea, late daisies, purple spiderwort and speedwell shine in the garden. All across the nation’s midsection, there are hedges of white elderberry flowers, roadsides of violet crown vetch, great fields of gold and green wheat.
If you follow the Mississippi Valley south, you will find hemlocks and thistles all gone to seed near St. Louis, teasel twice as tall as it is in Chicago. Sweet clover has almost disappeared by Memphis, and the blackberries are turning a little red. In the Deep South, Queen Anne's lace blooms, wild lettuce and horseweed too, and elderberries set their fruit.
The wheat fields are bare in the Gulf States, the roadsides full of black-eyed Susans, pennywort, thin-leafed mountain mint and Mexican hat. Deep in Central America, the sugar cane crop paces the sweet corn in Iowa.

The Week Sycamore Bark Falls
When the wheat harvest begins, then bright orange butterfly weed opens, and acorns become fully formed. Sycamore bark starts to shed, and thistle flowers change to down. Hemlock season is complete, stalks collapsing into the tall grasses. Clustered snakeroot has gone to seed like the waterleaf. Parsnip heads brown in the sun. Privet is done blooming. Henbit has stopped flowering.
Leafhoppers and Japanese beetles are reaching the economic threshold on the farm. Daddy longlegs are mating. Katydids are silent but roving. The first woolly-bear caterpillars, harbingers of winter, cross the road. Some baby snappers and mud turtles are hatching.
Poison ivy has green berries. The first touch-me-nots and the first thimble plants are budding. Wild garlic and euonymus atropurpureus, the burning bush, are blooming. Rugosa roses are coming in, accompanied by black-eyed Susans, wild petunias, and hobblebush. Staghorns have pushed out on the sumacs. Cattails are almost fully developed.

A Floating Sequence for the Blooming of Shrubs, Trees, Wildflowers and Perennials

June 1 Rugosa Rose, Floribunda Rose, Delphinium, Moth Mullein
June 2 Feverfew, Heliopsis, Quickweed
June 3 Swamp Valerian, Moneywort, Rape
June 4 Campanula, Wild Garlic, Scarlet Pimpernel
June 5 Bindweed, Canadian Thistle, Purple Coneflower
June 6 Pickerel Plant, Balloon Flower, Crown Vetch
June 7 Oakleaf Hydrangea, Indian Hemp
June 8 Virginia Creeper, Poison Ivy, Sow Thistle
June 9 Asiatic Lily, Carnation, Blueweed, Lizard’s Tail
June 10 Early Season Hosta, Shasta Daisy, Japanese Iris
June 11 Tiger Lily, Veronica, Hollyhock, Queen Anne’s Lace
June 12 Mallow, Larkspur, Deptford Pink, Smartweed
June 13 Tall Meadow Rue, Great Mullein
June 14 Leatherflower, Milkweed
June 15 Large-Leafed Hostas, Wild Petunia
June 17 Asiatic Dayflower
June 18 Trumpet Creeper
June 19 Russian Sage, Pokeweed, Black-Eyed Susan
June 20 Avens, Gooseneck
June 22 Enchanter’s Nightshade, Figwort
June 23 Catnip
June 24 Thimbleplant, Wood Mint
June 25 Bergamot, Tall Nettle, St. John’s Wort
June 26 Shasta Daisy, Creeping Bell Flower, Heal All
June 27 Hydrangea Paniculata, Lopseed
June 28 Rose of Sharon, Leafcup
June 29 Cattail, Fringed Loosestrife
June 30 Pale Touch-Me-Not