MAY.
Sow Sweet-Marjoram, Basil, Thyme, hot and Aromatic Herbs, and Plants which are the most tender.
Sow Parslan, to have young; Lettuce, large-sided Cabbage, painted Beans, etc.
Look carefully to your Mellons; and towards the end of this moneth, forbear to cover them any longer on the Ridges, either with straw or mattresses, etc.
Ply the Laboratory, and distill Plants for Waters, Spirits, etc.
Continue Weeding before they run to Seeds.
Now set your Bees at full Liberty, look out often, and expect Swarms, etc.
Pepins, Deuxans or John-Apples, West-berry-apples, Russeting, Gilly-flower Apples, the Maligan, etc., Codling.
Great Kainville, Winter-Bon-cretienne, Double Blossom-pear, etc.
The May-Cherry, Straw-berries, etc.
Now bring your Oranges, etc., boldly out of the Conservatory; ’tis your only Season to Transplant, and Remove them; let the Cases be fill’d with natural-earth (such as is taken the first half spit, from just under the Turf of the best Pasture ground), mixing it with one part of rotten Cow-dung, or very mellow Soil screen’d and prepar’d some time before; if this be too stiff, sift a little Lime discreetly with it. Then cutting the Roots a little, especially at bottom, set your Plant; but not too deep; rather let some of the Roots appear. Lastly, settle it with temperate water (not too much) having put some rubbish of Brick-bats, Lime-stones, Shells, or the like at the bottom of the Cases, to make the moisture passage, and keep the earth loose. Then set them in the shade for a fort-night, and afterwards expose them to the Sun.
Give now also all your hous’d-plants fresh earth at the surface, in place of some of the old earth (a hand-depth or so) and loos’ning the rest with a fork without wounding the Roots. Let this be of excellent rich soil, such as is thoroughly consumed and with sift, that it may wash in the vertue, and comfort the Plant. Brush, and cleanse them likewise from the dust contracted during their Enclosure. These two last directions have till now been kept as considerable secrets amongst our gard’ners; vide August and September.
Shade your Carnations and Gilly-flowers after midday about this season. Plant also your Stock Gilly-flowers in beds, full Moon.
Gather what Anemony-seed you find ripe, and that is worth saving, preserving it very dry.
Cut likewise the stalks of such Bulbous-flowers as you find dry.
Towards the end, take up those Tulips which are dried in the stalk; covering what you find to be bare from the Sun and showers.
Late set Anemonies and Ranunculus nom. gen. Anapodophylon, Chamae-iris, Angustifol, Cyanus, Columbines, Caltha Palustris, double Cotyledon, Digitalis, Fraxinella, Gladiolus, Geranium, Horminum Creticum, yellow Hemerocallis, strip’d Jacynth, early Bulbous Iris, Asphodel, Yellow Lilies, Lychnis, Jacca, Bellis double, white and red, Millefolium Liteum, Lilium Convalium, Span. Pinkes, Deptford-pinke, Rosa common, Cinnamon, Guelder and Centifol, etc. Syringa’s, Sedunis, Tulips, Serotin, etc. Valerian, Veronica double and single, Musk Violets, Ladies Slipper, Stock-gilly-flowers, Spanish Nut, Star-flower, Chalcedons, ordinary Crow-foot, red Martagon, Bee-flowers, Campanula’s white and bleu, Persian Lilly, Honey-suckles, Buglosse, Homers Moly, and the white of Dioscorides, Pansys, Prunella, purple Thalictrum, Sisymbrium, double and single, Leucoium bulbosum serstinum, Rose-mary Stacchas, Barba Jovis, Laurus, Satyrion, Oxyacanthus, Tamariscus, Apple-blossoms, etc.