Flowers That Bloom in May in Sacramento Valley

• Some areas of the Sacramento Valley are a carpet of gold in May. Robert Glusic/Photodisc/Getty Images

  The Sacramento Valley, in the center of California, is today a flat grassland ending in the foothills of the three mountain ranges that define the area. Summers can be hot and dry in the valley and flowering plants are profuse in the spring, when it is cooler and wetter. Planting a garden is one way to bring a spring ecosystem to a Sacramento Valley yard, with bee- and butterfly-friendly plants, and in May, the natural landscape becomes lush with flowers.

Butterfly Garden

• University of California Davis publishes an extensive list of butterflies that visit the Sacramento Valley in search of favorite plants. Among the plants that bloom in May are California lilac, which flowers in spring in the foothills. Its blue, white and pink flowers attract blues and hairstreaks. The true lilac, with pink or purple blooms, and lavender plants bloom from April through the summer.

  Lilacs draw western tigers and pipevine swallowtails. Lavender attracts skippers and cabbage whites. The California buckeye is a tree that blooms from April to June in the higher elevations of the valley. Pipevine swallowtails, hairstreaks and checkerspots like to visit. Purple milkweed vines bloom in late spring in the valley and support the monarch butterfly. Small marigolds are lures for small butterflies of various kinds and the larger marigolds attract monarchs. Choosing plants that typically flower in May in your area means you can have a butterfly garden from spring on into summer.

Hummingbird Habitat

• Hummingbirds can live for 8 years, fly 40 mph for 500 miles and eat twice their weight in nectar and insects every day. Six voracious species live in California and you can attract them to a Sacramento Valley garden in May with the right flowering plants. Hummingbirds are fairly specific about what they like although very sweet nectar is usually at the top of their lists. Salmonberry is a shrub that grows tall enough to protect the tiny birds from cats. The flowers are big, reddish-purple blossoms that show up from April to June, right along with the hummingbirds.

  Other miniature avian favorites that bloom in the valley at the same time are red larkspur, woolly blue curls, fragrant yellow bush snapdragon, manzanita, colorful show-off monkey flowers --- these bloom in vivid blues and reds. Hummingbirds will go to the red flowers first because bees avoid red flowers so they typically have the most nectar.

Vernal Pools

• The vernal pools in the Sacramento Valley explode in concentric bands of color in spring and gradually dry to hard-baked mud in summer. In May there are carpets of wildflowers everywhere, ringing the pools in a dazzling display. White-flowered sand spurrey blooms along with salt-marsh sand spurrey that has tiny pink flowers which open in full sun.

  Yellow mariposa lily and purple clarkia are a vivid contrast and violet-fringed checker-mallow might mix with white and rose-petaled hairy checker-mallow. Pink lupine is rarer and prefers the grassiest well-drained soil. There are circles upon circles of native and invasive yellow-flowering plants. And then it's summer and the impressionist painting turns into a moonscape for another season.