May Gardening Tips for the Midwest

While it's still a little chilly for outdoor living, decorate entryways using containers brimming with flowers and herbs. You'll turn heads when you focus on bloomers in a complementary shade to your home's exterior.

Frost is still a possibility in much of the Midwest this month. For early-May color, choose plants that withstand chilly spring nights: snapdragons, sweet alyssum, pansy, or fragrant flowering stock.

If you celebrate Mother's Day with hanging baskets, choose annuals like fuchsia and bacopa, which won't wilt during cool nights. Annual sweet potato vines, nasturtium, and impatiens are frost-tender and can't take even a light frost.

Keep fresh herbs handy by tucking them in pots in early spring. Gather leaves to add garden-fresh flavors to meals.

Test Garden Tip: Rosemary, thyme, and lavender hail from dry Mediterranean climes. These herbs thrive in unglazed terra-cotta pots, which are porous and keep soil on the dry side.