A Floating Sequence

For the Blooming of Shrubs, Trees, Wildflowers and Perennials

May 1 Silver Olive, Sweet Gum

May 2 Poppy, Daisy, Star of Bethlehem, Sedum

May 3 White Mulberry, Mountain Maple, Wild Strawberry

May 4 Locust, Black Walnut, Oaks, Golden Seal, Scarlet Pimpernel

May 5 Pyrethrum, Solomon’s Seal, Golden Alexander

May 6 Rhododendron, Columbine

May 7 Wood Sorrel, Spiderwort

May 8 Mock Orange, Sweet Cicely, Robin’s Fleabane

May 9 Chives, Catmint, Waterleaf, Wild Raspberry, Shooting Star

May 10 Peony, Sweet Rocket, May Apple

May 11 Black Raspberry, Elm, Chamomile

May 12 Yellow Poplar, Clustered Snakeroot, White Clover, Common Plantain, Meadow Goatsbeard

May 13 Comfrey, Wild Multiflora Rose, Blue Flag, Wild

Daisy, Red Clover, Black Medic

May 14 Scabiosa, Lupine, Geum, Small-Flowered Mallow

May 15 Wild Orange Day Lily, Stella d’Oro Lily, Fire Pink

May 16 Yucca, Blue Flax, Foxglove, Blackberry

May 17 Achillea, Swamp Iris, Wild Grape, Cow Vetch

May 18 Lamb’s Ear, Kousa Dogwood

May 19 Climbing Rose, Tea Rose, Yellow Sweet Clover

May 21 Catalpa, Pink Spirea, Parsnip, Corn Salad

May 22 Privet, River Willow

May 23 Astilbe, Panicled Dogwood, Poison Hemlock, Angelica

May 24 Japanese Honeysuckle, Motherwort

May 25 Tree of Heaven, Yarrow

May 26 Poison Ivy, White Campion

May 27 Cottonwood

May 28 Elderberry, Cinquefoil

May 29 Lychnis, Chicory

May 30 Snow-on-the-Mountain

May 31 Coreopsis, Cow Parsnip, Honewort

 

The Seasons of May in the Lower Midwest

The First Week

The first week of May brings Daddy Longlegs Season to the undergrowth and Petal-Fall Season throughout town. Darner Season commences along the waterways. Dandelion Blooming Season ends throughout the region as Ruby Throated Hummingbird Season begins at your feeders. Bellwort Season, Golden Seal Season, Golden Alexander Season, and Solomon's Seal Season mark the woods. Scarlet Pimpernel Season appears in the lawn. Sweet Gum Flowering Season, White Mulberry Flowering Season, Black Walnut Flowering Season and Oak Flowering Season spread through the high canopy. In the garden, it’s Poppy Season, Columbine Season and Rhododendron Season.

The Second Week

This is blooming season for sweet Cicely, May apples and wood sorrel. Mayfly Season begins along the Little Miami and Yellow Springs Creek. Weevil Season comes in throughout the local alfalfa fields. As Petal-Fall Season closes for crab apples, cherry trees and redbuds, Thrush Season, Catbird Season and Scarlet Tanager Season come to the bushes. It’s Bullfrog Season (Dianna Matthews called to report a cat with a bullfrog in its mouth just last week) in the swamp and Spitbug Season in the parsnips.

The Third Week

Iris Season, Mock Orange Season, and Peony Season reach Yellow Springs as May deepens. Locust Blossoming Season sweetens the winds. For gardeners, it’s Clematis Season, Rhododendron Season and Star of Bethlehem Season (but Flea Beatle Season, too). Strawberry Ripening Season arrives, marked by the earliest days of Swallowtail Season and Monarch Butterfly Season. Along the roadsides, find Meadow Goatsbeard Season and Sweet Clover Season and Buttercup Season. At your screen door, it’s June Bug Season. South Glen hosts Tall Meadow Rue Season and Angelica Season.

The Fourth Week

The last week of May offers the best of Honeysuckle Blooming Season and Sweet William Season. It’s Multiflora Rose Blooming Season, Privet Blooming Season, Yellow Poplar Blooming Season and Spiderwort Season. In the woods, Gold-Collared Blackfly Season and Green Six-Spotted Tiger Beetle Season have started. Along the bikepath, it’s Blackberry Blooming Season and Black Raspberry Blooming Season. In the garden, discover Leafhopper Season and Scorpion Fly Season. Grasshopper Season and Northern Spring Field Cricket Season bring the fields alive. Butterfly seasons include White-Spotted Skipper Season and Red Admiral Season. It’s Fledgling Robin Season in the yard, Young Groundhog Season in the fresh grass along the highways.

May Phenology: When - Then

When you see lamb’s ear, tea roses, pink spirea or privets blooming, then you can plant your tomatoes with hardly a thought for a damaging freeze (but keep protection handy).

When daisies flower by the wayside and white mulberries and mountain maples bloom, then find daddy longlegs in the undergrowth and darners by the water’s edge.

When you see redbud trees getting seedpods, then go looking for horseshoe crabs mating along the Carolina and Georgia coastline. Or listen for the first crickets of the year singing in the sun.

When lilac flowers fade, look for hawthorn lace bugs and hawthorn leafminers to emerge in the hawthorns. Look for pine needle scale eggs, cooley spruce gall adelgid and Eastern spruce gall adelgid eggs to hatch, too.

When you see poppies in bloom, look for migrating white-throated sparrows, ruby-crowned kinglets, yellow-rumped warblers, magnolia warblers, tanagers, grosbeaks, and orioles.

When tulips are in full bloom in the North, the best of the spring wildflowers have all disappeared in the Southwest. But you can still find prickly pear cacti flowering in the desert.

When mock orange reaches full flower, look for black vine weevils and greater peach tree borers. Then come the rhododendron borers and the dogwood borers!

When the great spring dandelion bloom reaches into the Northeast, pelicans and trumpeter swans will be laying eggs near Yellowstone Lake, and gosling will be hatching all along the Mississippi.

When multiflora roses come into flower, look for the bronze birch borer to emerge and oystershell scale eggs to hatch.

And when American holly blooms (about the same time as the multiflora roses), then potato leafhoppers will be hopping in the potatoes.

When hummingbirds arrive at your feeders, look for thrushes, catbirds and scarlet tanagers to arrive, too.

When you see strawberries coming into full bloom, wild cucumber will be sprouting along the rivers.

When summer phlox are two-feet tall, listen for catbirds in the bushes.

When apple blossoms fall, hunt for rare, medicinal golden seal blooming in the woods.

When you see mayflies by the water, spitbugs will be making their spittle shelters in the parsnips, and the first cut of hay will be underway.

When chives bloom in the garden, then crappie fishing peaks in the shallows.

When flower clusters of the sweet-gum tree fall, check to see if your first strawberry is red.

When azaleas lose their petals, morel season is about over for the year, and swallowtail butterflies come looking for flowers.

When flea beetles are feeding in the vegetable garden, cedar waxwings will be migrating through your land, and fiddler crabs will be emerging from their tunnels in the estuaries of the South.

When you see the first brown “June” bug clinging to your screen door, look for young fireflies glowing in the night grass.

When the last locust flowers fall to the ground, then mulberries will be ripening. In the wetlands, wild iris will be in bloom.

When you see cottonwood cotton floating in the wind, then deer will be giving birth and pollen from grasses will be reaching its peak. Panicled dogwood will be budding, and grackles will be feeding their pesky young.

When blackberries have set fruit across the South, then sunflowers are in full bloom in southern California, and spring wheat and oats are just about all planted in the North

When you see nettles waist high, then check the garden for cutworms.

When Canadian thistles start to bud, it’s safe to plant your peppers, cantaloupes and cucumbers. But check for armyworms and corn borers in the fields.

When the first thistle blooms, the corn should be at least eight inches tall.

When you hear spring crickets sing, look for leafhoppers in the garden and snapping turtle eggs in the sand.

When you see the first elderberries blooming, check for bean leaf beetles and alfalfa weevils in your field and garden.

THE SEASONAL CALENDAR
Rise early now this month of Maye,
And walk the fields that be so gaye.

Buckminster Almanack, May 1598

May 1: This is the week that daddy longlegs begin hunting in the undergrowth throughout the nation’s midsection. Darners will be out in the swamps where cattails are almost always two or three feet tall. Cliff swallows migrate as buckeyes and lilacs and garlic mustard come into full bloom. Yellow wood sorrel blossoms in the alleys, and the first cycle of cabbage moths is at its peak. Star of Bethlehem flowers in the sun. Sedum opens in the woods. Peony buds are an inch across.

May 2: Oak leaves are the size of a squirrel's ear. Some maples are fully leafed, others just starting, some dropping seeds. The high tree line is completely alive all across the country, either with new glowing foliage or with orange buds or golden flowers.

May 3: Along the Eastern seaboard, horseshoe crabs are mating, their numbers especially great when the moon is either new or full and the tide is high. In the Great Plains knotweed is chin high, hops eight feet. The most precocious poppies have opened.

May 5: Rose of Sharon leafs out. Redbud gets seed pods; scarlet pimpernel opens below them. Clustered snakeroot season starts in the new shade. Eastern wood pewees arrive. Northern spring field crickets have hatched in milder years.

May 6: Between May 7th and 13th, the second major wave of migrating songbirds usually reaches the Lake Erie shore. It includes white-throated sparrows, ruby-crowned kinglets, yellow-rumped warblers, magnolia warblers, tanagers, grosbeaks, and orioles.

May 7: This is the average date for apple petal-fall along the Great Lakes. Grape shoots are two to four inches long in northern vineyards. Throughout the upper tier of states, tulips are typically in full bloom this second week of May.

May 8: In the Southwest, the best of the spring wildflowers are gone, poppies having wilted in the heat of late spring. Century plant stalks rise in the Big Bend region of Texas, however, and prickly pear cactus are in full bloom throughout the desert.

May 9: In the gardens of Chicago and southern Wisconsin (or even Canterbury, England), go back in time to catch the last of the redbuds and crab apples, cowslips, spring beauties, Virginia bluebells, and Jacob’s ladder. Throughout the upper tier of states, tulips are typically in full bloom this second week of May. And the great spring dandelion bloom, which just departed the Ohio Valley, is traveling toward the Canadian border.

May 10: Throughout the Rocky Mountains, pelicans and trumpeter swans are laying eggs near Yellowstone Lake. Goslings are hatching there just like they are along the Mississippi. Hummingbirds arrive at the upper elevations of Montana about the same time they get to Cincinnati.

May 11: Mock orange and strawberries come into full bloom in the lower Midwest. Summer hosta leaves are about full size. Ferns, nettles, day lilies, comfrey, and summer phlox have reached almost two feet. The thrush, catbird, and scarlet tanager arrive in the dense thickets, just as wild cucumber sprouts along the rivers.

May 12: After apple blossoms fall, wooded slopes are filled with garlic mustard, green and white among the still bare trees. It is the best time of all for blue forget-me-not, golden ragwort, watercress, wild geranium, swamp buttercup, late winter cress, white spring cress and the wild purple phlox. Sweet rocket, fleabane, golden seal, Solomon's seal, columbine, golden Alexander, sweet Cicely, daisy, fire pink, common plantain, horseradish, chamomile, black medic, star of Bethlehem, lupines, lily-of-the-valley, sweet William, meadow goat’s beard, May apple, wood hyacinth, and sedum are almost always open.

May 13: Mayflies are out along the water. Bullfrogs call. Minnows and chubs have turned a reddish-gold for their mating seasons. Flea time has begun for pets even along the Canadian border, a sign that insect activity is nearing the economic threshold on the farm. Spitbugs grow in the shelter of swamp parsnips, announcing that the first cut of hay will soon be underway. In the garden, white and yellow cabbage moths play and spiral above the rhubarb. Flies become pesky in the mild afternoons. Crappie fishing peaks in the shallows as the sun nears three-fourths of the way to summer solstice.

May 14: Mountain maples, lilacs and wild cherries flower. Poison ivy—like the Virginia creeper and wild grapes—develops to a third of its June size. Rose of Sharon and the green ash finally begin to leaf. The foliage of ginkgoes, sycamores, witch hazels, and sweet gums is all a third to half of full size. Maples fill out quickly. All the sweet gum flower clusters fall as chives blossom.

May 15: When azaleas lose their petals, daisies, clematis, and the first cinquefoil open all the way, the first strawberry ripens, and swallowtail butterflies visit the star of Bethlehem and bleeding hearts. The last quince flowers fall, and lilacs decay.

May 16: Morel season has ended in the Appalachians but is just beginning at higher elevations in the far West. The bright yellow arrowleaf balsamroot is flowering there, and cottonwoods fill out. Elk are migrating north into higher summer ranges, and cutthroat trout are getting ready to spawn in the cold mountain streams.

May 17: In the salt marshes of the South, fiddler crabs emerge from their tunnels in creeks and estuaries. Across the Atlantic, in the fields of Kent, England, apple orchards are still in bloom, bulbous buttercups, and bluebells, too.

May 19: Cedar waxwings migrate north as the last buckeye flowers fall. The first June bug clings to the screen door when the first firefly glows in the lawn and river grass is knee high. Flea beetles come feeding in the vegetable garden when white clover blooms in the yard.

May 20: Locust flowers open as the high canopy slowly closes in. Black walnuts, silver olives, and oaks become the other major sources of pollen. Tall meadow rue is knee high now in the wetlands and fields, pacing the angelica. In the rivers, lizard’s tail has three leaves. Golden ragwort, pale violet Jacob’s ladder, columbine, and the wild geraniums are still in full flower. July’s wood nettle is a foot tall. Deep red ginger has replaced the toad trillium close to the ground around the small open fingers of white sedum.

May 22: Mulberries and wild grapes flower. Multiflora roses, spirea, boxwood and yellow poplars are ready to bloom. Evergreens have four to six inches of new growth. Sycamore and ginkgo leaves are half size, and the rest of the maples fill in. Wild strawberries wander, bright yellow, though the purple ivy and the sticky catchweed. Blue-eyed grass is open. Wild iris blooms in the wetlands.

May 25: Cottonwood trees are in bloom, seeds floating through the countryside. Fawn births peak as the wild roses fade. Elderberry bushes and panicled dogwoods reach full bloom. Bottlegrass is fresh and sweet for chewing. A few mulberries are ready to pick.
Pollen from grasses reaches its peak in the central portions of the United States, as bluegrass, orchard grass, timothy, red top and bermuda grass all continue to flower. In the forests of the North, pines, spruce, hemlock, arbor vitae, alders, and birch reach the height of their blossoming.

May 27: Iris and peonies are blooming at elevations near 4000 feet in southern Idaho. Aspen leaves are the size of a thumbnail, and the raspberry plants are just getting their leaves in Yellowstone. Blackberries are in full bloom in the Northwest, and dogwood trees are open around Sequoia National Park in California at the same time that the canola and winter wheat crops are about ready to be harvested in the Midwest. In the Southwest, blackberries have set fruit, and wildflowers such as chicory, salsify, moth mullein, great mullein, and milkweed are open—marking the full bloom of the sunflower crop in southern California. North of Sacramento, the wheat is darkening - just like it is in Indiana

May 31: Spring pasture now reaches its brightest green of the year, and haying moves towards the Canadian border at the rate of about one hundred miles a week; it will be taking place almost everywhere in the United States by the middle of June. Spring wheat is just about all planted in the North, and the oats crop is in the ground between Denver and New York. Potatoes and commercial tomatoes and pickles have all been set out along the Great Lakes. Winter wheat is gold below the Mason-Dixon Line. Blueberries are setting fruit in the Northeast. In Southern gardens, squash bugs and Japanese beetles are out in force.