May has always been my hands-down favorite month!

Merry, magical, magnificent.

May is the month when birds sing their loudest, when country brooks burble with high-spirited gaiety, and wildflowers too numerous to count dapple fields and forests in festive dress.

The sun shines warm in May. The air is sweet. And even a cloudy morning or a rainy afternoon cannot darken the mood or dampen your enjoyment.

“All the world is glad with May,” wrote naturalist John Burroughs. A few lines later he proclaimed May the “joy-month” of the year.

Who would disagree?

Certainly not me! I was born in May—a serendipitous birthday gift. One I’m always grateful to claim and willing to tout — an honor I celebrate with renewed appreciation every spring.

I don’t think it makes me overly biased in favoring this fifth month above all others — though I will admit that for an Irishman, being born during this greenest of the months is a double-barreled blessing!

But from poets to fishermen, gardeners to bird-watchers, May in its entirety is beloved by one and all.

May is when April’s vernal promise becomes manifest. It’s spring’s definitive reign. And doubtless, this marvelous seasonal magnificence was what Wordsworth was getting at when he wrote of the “sovereignty of May.”

“May makes my grass grow — and makes me have to mow,” a neighbor once drolly lamented.

Yup. Maybe you didn’t find it necessary to give your lawn more than a single cursory cutting during April. But now that May has arrived, that’s all gonna change, as grass growth goes into overdrive.

Bright sun, regular rains, cool nights, and days that are warm but not too hot are the perfect prescription for growing grass. You can mow on Monday, notice the yard is again looking a bit shaggy again by Wednesday, and should you put off cutting again until the weekend, you may have to resort to using a scythe because the grass will already be too high for your power mower!

Fecundity runs amok in May!

Years ago, an old cowboy — the genuine article, mind you, who was visiting Ohio during May from his ranch in the parched rangeland of California — confided to me: “I am purely astonished by all your lovely grass,” he said, unable to keep the wonderment from his voice. “Envious, too! Plumb makes me want to get down on my hands and knees and bury my face in it, maybe chomp a mouthful or two.”

“May brings the flowers to bloom, it brings the green leaves to the trees,” observed Paul Lawrence Dunbar.

In a matter of days, local woodlands will turn from fairly open, with only a partial dress of emerging leaves relieving the skeletal starkness of exposed limbs and trunks, to a cloistered retreat where a verdant canopy hides the sky — each tree and bush hastily decking out in its luxuriant green cloak.

Moreover, if you believe that leaf green is a monotone, a one-size-fits-all shade, a walk in any May woods will quickly convince you otherwise. The greens of May’s new leaves are more like an entire palette — their hues are as variegated as the plants themselves.

In May, “green” can mean anything from mossy to mint, olive to verdigris, deep emerald to bright chartreuse, plus a thousand shades in between. You can count and differentiate among May’s green hues for a week and still not exhaust their variations.

It was, I suspect, this dense and exploding greenness that long ago prompted an anonymous Scottish bard to characterize May as “lusty,” meaning full of vigor and vitality, robust.

May is indeed vigorous and robust. And why not? Dawns come early, and dusk doesn’t get around until just before bedtime. In fact, you’d have to look all the way back to last August to match the length of today’s fourteen-plus hours of daylight.

There’s therefore a wealth of sunlight to add to the mild temperatures and abundant moisture — all of which combines to help create an ideal growing season. This also explains why your lawn currently needs mowing twice a week.

In the old days, the various Algonquin tribes knew May as the time of the Flower Moon.

How appropriate! While the earliest of spring’s ephemerals have already passed or are now fading fast, an even greater number of what I consider “mid-spring bloomers” are filling the wildlands and roadsides with color. Dozens of wildflowers, and everyone has their favorites.

Of course, wildflowers aren’t the only flowering plants of May. Trees, too, bloom this month — especially the luscious-scented wild apples.

“There’s perfume upon every wind,” wrote poet Nathaniel Parker Willis.

Honeysuckle, wild apple, serviceberry, and locust are only a few of a dozen or more which daily add their fragrances to the rich May air.

A more common contributor to this heady mix, though no less appreciated for being widespread, are the violets. You can’t speak of May without mentioning violets!

Sure, there have been violets blooming for a month. But that’s beside the point. May and violets go together so aptly they’re practically synonymous.

On a recent evening, I stepped outside and sat in one of the weathered teak rockers on our front porch. The sun had slipped below the western horizon and twilight was dialing toward darkness, cooling the air, making me glad I’d thought to slip on my old flannel-lined canvas field coat before I came outside.

A few yards away, the river shimmered amid the crepuscular glow — a pewter ribbon, chuckling softly as it journeyed along. I heard a catbird mewing in the hedge, while a cheery robin, sitting in the top of a big sycamore, swung jauntily through his vespers.

The air was lush with perfume from the many violets which have spread across the yard — their scent both tranquil and invigorating, the very essence of May’s nature.

I sat quiet, at peace…happy, grateful.

May is a treasure — a month-long gift…merry, magnificent, magic.

Reach Jim McGuire at [email protected].