Garden Diary No. 3 | May

A month of blooms, growing pains, and learning patience

May 29, 2026

As Fransisca woke up, her entire to-do list bounced around her head, some items clashing into each other as they raced to the top. Even though she had a long weekend ahead, it didn’t feel like enough time to catch up on everything she wanted to do. She wanted to write and spend time in the garden, but lately she had been giving so much of herself to everyone else that she wondered if life would slow down anytime soon.

She continued her morning with her usual routine. Morning pages, workout, shower, breakfast. With her protein coffee in hand, she forced herself outside, as checking on the front yard garden had become a daily ritual she was not willing to sacrifice. Her shoulders fell and a smile crawled onto her face when she saw them. The marshmallow-like peony buds.

Without hesitation, she put her drink down, ran inside, and grabbed her camera and pruners. She took hundreds of pictures from every angle, not caring who walked by. Once she was satisfied, she stood there listening to the birds chirping and the bees buzzing around the salvia, watching her chest rise and fall.

She observed how the ants climbed across the buds and between the loose petals, how the sunlight cascaded over them, how the peonies swayed softly as a gentle breeze passed through them. Maybe she wasn’t as behind as she thought.

She had to bring some of this beauty indoors, so she cut a handful of blooms and held them close to her face before heading back inside. She inhaled their sweet perfume and let out a deep breath she didn’t realize she was holding. Her cup was filled, and she was finally ready to take on the rest of the day.

Wow! I can’t believe it’s already the end of May. So much has happened. My son just wrapped up fifth grade and is on his way to junior high. I got a new tattoo, we went to ACEN (Anime Central Convention), and the garden is in full swing with a handful of plants already showing off their beautiful blooms.

What is time?! Seriously, if we aren’t careful and don’t be where our feet are, we will let our lives pass by without actually living them, without noticing the beauty all around us. Because just like the seasons of the earth, our lives will continue to move forward whether we decide to participate or not. Flowers don’t wait for anyone to notice them before they bloom. They just bloom, and the cycle continues.

A lot happened in the garden in May. I will admit, a lot of this month I felt scattered while trying to juggle writing, reading, family, work, the garden, and rest. Who am I kidding? I didn’t get much rest this month.

Since I work full time, weekends are usually gardening days. After Mother’s Day, the final frost had passed and all the heat-loving plants were finally planted. I’m happy to say that the rest of my seedlings, such as my zinnias and celosias, have officially moved out of the house and are starting their new lives in the garden. They grow up so fast, don’t they? Haha.

All the seeds I planned to direct sow, like sunflowers, marigolds, and dwarf zinnias, have been planted as well. Every bed, container, and raised bed has been filled except one. (Saving it for new bee balm. The plant decided not to come back this year. I think the pot it was in was too small.)

At the beginning of the year, during the planning stage, I told myself I wasn’t going to plant any tomatoes or cucumbers. Turns out that was a lie.

I devoted the bed near our garage to one Roma tomato plant, one cherry tomato plant, and a few direct-sown cucumber seeds. (Literally the easiest seeds to start. No need for an overpriced seedling. Just get a pack of seeds and throw them in the ground. They will sprout in a few days.) I also planted a handful of sunflower seeds on both ends of the bed.

Since both cherry tomatoes and cucumbers are vine plants, I made sure to have a trellis for them to climb and gave them ample room between plants. I have not mastered training vining plants yet, so this area may still end up a tangled mess.

Gardening Tip #1: Give your plants, especially viney and bushy ones, adequate spacing to allow for healthy growth. Doing this helps with airflow, which can reduce the risk of diseases like powdery mildew. It also ensures each plant gets sufficient sunlight and soil nutrients. That said, I don’t always follow spacing guidelines exactly. Gardening is kind of a choose your own adventure.

A couple dahlias I planted in a barrel planter exploded towards the end of the month, and that’s when I noticed they were too close to each other. When planting seedlings out, it may look like they have enough room, but I have to keep reminding myself how big the plant will get at maturity. I ended up transplanting one into its own container.

I really think dahlias’ purpose this gardening season is to teach me all the lessons and give me a slight heart attack. Earlier this month, we had an unexpected frost, and I did not have any frost covers (buying some for next year). About 75% of my dahlias’ leaves turned black, and I wasn’t sure if they would survive.

It’s just another way of the garden slapping me on the wrist and reminding me to be patient. I’m learning that every gardening season is different, and with the weather becoming more unpredictable, I can’t expect to plant things out around the same time each year.

So next year, I will wait to plant my dahlias until I’m able to plant my zinnias. I ended up cutting off all the dead leaves and leaving the plants in the raised beds. It took a few weeks, lots of rain, and heat, but my dahlia babies are doing well and have had so much new growth.

Gardening Tip #2: Make sure to continuously deadhead faded blooms and remove dead leaves. When a plant’s blooms start to fade, they direct all their energy into making babies, aka seeds. When you deadhead those blooms, they redirect that energy into making new blooms. The same goes for dead leaves. Removing them helps redirect the plant’s energy to healthy growth and encourages new blooms.

Removing faded blooms and dead leaves is a great reminder that sometimes we have to let go of things that no longer serve us in life. Past mistakes, bad relationships, limiting beliefs, and any negative energy weighing us down. This is your reminder to get your pruners out and cut what you need out of your life. With time, you’ll start to feel revitalized.

I didn’t just remove the dead leaves from my dahlias. I also did something that hurts my soul every time I do it. But it’s a necessary evil if you want more blooms. I pinched them. I also did this to all the other cut-and-come-again flowers like zinnias, marigolds, snapdragons, and celosia.

Pinching is when you snip off the main growing tip of a young plant right above a set of leaves. I tend to do this for about half of the plants because yes, it does delay blooms by a few weeks. That way I still get some early blooms while the others catch up.

Gardening Tip #3: Pinch your cut-and-come-again flowers after they have about three to four pairs of true leaves, or if they start budding very early. This stops the plant from devoting all its energy into one bloom. Instead, it branches out from the base and produces significantly more flowers.

While deadheading is removing spent parts of the plant, pinching hurts because it’s intentionally removing perfectly healthy active growth. Pinching is hard for me because it’s uncomfortable. But something I’ve learned over the past decade is that growth in life often happens in the uncomfortable. To become a new version of yourself, you have to let go of parts of the old one. It’s understanding that certain comfortable habits need to be pinched away in order to build stronger ones.

Now for some fun stuff. What is blooming in my garden in May? Snapdragons, chamomile, violas, roses, salvia, and peonies. We also had a handful of volunteer sunflowers in our coffin raised bed, and I couldn’t bring myself to pull them out. I ended up planting a few pepper plants (jalapeño, habanero, and serrano) in there and will just monitor and remove any sunflower leaves if they start blocking sun from the peppers.

I love taking part of my day to spend time with the flowers. To be present and appreciate their beauty. I’ve cut snapdragons and peonies to bring into the house, and I usually spend time with the camera taking a gazillion pictures of them. It’s another creative outlet for me. The camera helps me freeze a moment in time with them. I share some of the pictures on my gardening Instagram page from time to time. I’m trying to get better at sharing more, but sometimes I just want to be in the moment and would rather spend my free time writing.

All that to say, peonies are one of my favorite flowers. I literally got a tattoo of one a couple weeks ago. They only bloom once a year, but watching them grow from tiny shoots poking out of the ground, to growing leaves, branching out, and forming buds, then finally transforming into lush, gigantic layered blooms, feels magical every single time. It’s a reminder that good things can take a long time. Sometimes growth is invisible, but the journey is just as beautiful as the result.

Until next month,
Christina