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Every year the weather picks winners and losers in the garden. It's not unusual for this to happen several times throughout the growing season.

As we approach the end of spring and the official start of summer it might be wise to summarize the growing season to date.

May has been cool. May was wet. That makes excellent conditions for transplanting perennials, shrubs and trees. With the current levels of soil moisture there are no concerns about continuing to add plants to your garden. Most annuals also are happy, but that subset of annuals that like high soil and air temperatures can be struggling.

Many in that subset live in the vegetable garden. Tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, cucumbers and melons are off to a rather slow start and seem to be showing more symptoms of fungus problems.

For once, the procrastinators can smile a little. They can be the tortoises that catch the April hares. More likely, they will just get a lot closer than they usually do.

On the plus side, the rains and the cool temperatures have hindered the rise of insect populations. There is no question that a good rain is a great insecticide. One reminder, if you see bagworms on your evergreens, action should be taken sometime after mid June.

The bagworm moths emerge and lay their eggs late in the spring. Sometime between mid June and July 1, the eggs hatch. The young larvae are your best and perhaps only target if you wish to control this pest.

Summer application of horticultural oil works well by smothering the young worms. There are several other spray options. Contacting the Lancaster County Gardener's Hotline weekday mornings at 394-6851 would get you the best information if you were plagued with bagworms.

The frequent rains may be making it difficult to keep container plantings dry enough. I have seen evidence of some shrub wilts caused by root fungus spawned by too much moisture.

I have seen several problems in the rhododendron family. Leaf drop, yellowing and curling seem to predominate. They will not tolerate wet feet. This year there are more sites with wet feet than normal.

I often rail against too much watering in the garden. If you have had the water hose out for anything but transplanting and your containers, you need to put it away for the good of your plants.Another major plus is that the blooms this spring has been excellent in quality and staying power.

My assessment to date is that the spring planting season has been better than average from a temperature perspective. The rains will permit any who wish to extend the planting season.

Warmer temperatures are bound to come and the heat lovers will improve. If you are unhappy with any of those warm vegetables you planted earlier, you still have several weeks to add additional plants to ensure or extend the vegetable garden season.

Additions to you landscape match the rainfall patterns or depend on you for OCCASIONAL watering if we shift to drier conditions.

I'm about to launch a crusade to have the word 'instant' removed from the dictionary. Let me explain my motivation.

Way too often I overhear conversations that suggest that an eager gardener is about to transform the local equivalent of the Amazon jungle into a timeless, manicured landscape treasure in a single afternoon.

In this political season I may have spun that last paragraph a bit too tight, but I hope you get the picture. Good gardens evolve over time. Any time I have tried to rush the effort I've paid the price with at least a lot of extra maintenance.

Before you think about good plants, you should think about the bad ones. What are you going to do about the weeds? In problem areas, adequate weed suppression can take a full season. One spray or one cultivation won't do it. Smothering them with a cover for a season works well.

After a bit of spot spraying, a lot of hand pulling and a modest amount of mulch, most of my beds are relatively low maintenance. My wife might claim I hold that opinion because she does most of that work.

On the other hand, my vegetable garden, which also gets cultivated, still seems to house an unlimited supply of weed seeds.

The second fault with instant, is plant selection.

After a several years of thinking, I spent big bucks to buy two Japanese Maples to straddle the walk leading to my front door. Since they are very slow growing, I bought plants that had been growing for some years. That was three summers ago.

The first year was spent worrying that they were going to die. Since I knew that maples generally do not like excess water, I resisted the temptation to help them die by drowning.

A year later they looked better, but I was still afraid to measure their progress because I suspect that the tape measure would show them shorter than when I planted them. Despite the fact I wrapped then for the winter, I got some tip dieback. Daughter Kris even started to question my selection wisdom.

Finally, in year three I see reasonable new growth and the fullness that I had hoped for.

I'll share an industry secret. In the spring you can take many five-cent perennials, put them in a larger pot and have a ten-cent perennial in a month or less. Since you won't find five-cent perennials, I'll let you think about the arithmetic.

Done thinking. That could be two dollar to four dollar, five dollar to 10 dollar or 10 dollar to 20 dollar. The same thing will happen in your garden, and you will have money for more plants or gas to go get them.

With woodies, of course the clock slows down, but you will be shocked about how short the catch up time is.

If my crusade fails, perhaps we can slow the pace of instant and make it more fun, relaxing and leisurely. That's all our gardens really owe us.

The beauty, or perhaps I should say glory, has now faded from the array of small spring blooming trees that dot many of our landscapes. My mind wonders if some of these are heroes and others should be relegated to the jayvee team.

It started last winter when I received a call from a grounds maintenance person from one of the largest companies in the area. His boss loved flowering cherry trees, but the crew was faced with near-ugly by mid to late summer.

Cherries, ornamental and fruiting, face a number of leaf fungi, which left untreated, will almost denude the tree by late summer or early fall. Young cherry trees are a bit winter tender, which may contribute to cherry's reputation as short lived. I would define short as 15 to 30 years.

My pink dogwoods that are of native extraction, were showstoppers this spring. I have them planted in an airy spot and so far they have escaped the diseases that have greatly reduced the dogwood population in its native location. Some have switched to the later blooming Kousa dogwood, which is disease resistant.

More recently, there are hybrids that incorporate just enough resistant blood into the natives to make than resistant. I have about a dozen in the ground and am very pleased to date.

Serviceberry is another favorite native small tree. It is often seen as a large multi-stemmed shrub. It's a white cloud when it blooms and provides good berries for the birds. Its fault is that given high temperatures or rain the blooms fade almost overnight. They last only three or four days under perfect conditions.

Magnolias come in sizes ranging from nearly 10 feet to trees in excess of 30 feet. They originate from the maritime climates of eastern Asia. Here, they can be surprised by early warm-ups followed by stiff frosts. They were great this spring but suffer once every three to five seasons.

We can't forget the tall skinny Bradford pear that is, or more likely was, a favorite a few years ago. I've already defined its shortcomings by describing it habit. Any time you have a branch at a tight angle to the central stem, it is weaker. I have seen lots of fatal breakage in this pear, but still have some near 20-year-old specimens that are beautiful in the spring.

More recently there have been pear introductions that give wider branching and thus better trees.

Flowering plums and redbuds travel the same road of cherries, with the redbud holding out against the fungal diseases a little bit better.

Finally, there is one that is quite uncommon. Blooming now, it's a native called fringe tree or old man's beard. Blue berries, that the birds will swarm, follow the blooms. The Latin is Chionanthus virginicus.

Did I answer my original question? No. I've got all but the cherries currently in my landscape and I have a few pots of them looking for the right spot. Each has its faults, but you will never convince me of that during the spring bloom.

Several weeks ago I talked about some new annuals I though worth investigating. I have a few more to add to the list.

Ball keeps adding new lines to it's "Ride the Wave(TM)" petunia phenomenon. Several years ago, Purple Wave(TM), bred by a Japanese beer maker, revolutionized the petunia market. Its vigorous, trailing, ground-hugging habit made it a favorite for landscapers and home gardeners. The effort Ball spent advertising it didn't hurt either.

Next came the Tidal Waves(TM), a taller hedge-type petunia just as vigorous, but almost 2 feet tall. The Easy Waves(TM) followed. More similar to the original animal, but slightly taller and not quite as vigorously spreading. This year the Shock Waves(TM), a small-flowered type, geared for hanging baskets and containers, joins the family. All of these are F1 hybrids, sown from seed. All come in various shades of pink, purple and white.

Several companies have tried to answer the success of the Waves with vegetative trailing varieties. In my humble opinion, from what I've seen at the Landisville trials, the Supertunias from Proven Winners give them some good competition. Both on the strength of their performance and their marketing campaigns.

Someone slap my wrist.

Harkening back to my science fair days when I grew marigolds up in my bathroom under Gro-Lights, I've always loved these tough, sunny bloomers. Whether grown in milk cartons by kindergardeners, planted at the edge of a vegetable garden to deter rabbits or at home in the flower beds, I think they're great.

Often overlooked because they are somewhat pedestrian, a perusal of a seed catalogue detailing the French, African, Anemone and Xanthophyll-rich types (to feed to chickens to improve skin color) will make your head spin.

When my dad was first starting in the greenhouse business, a white marigold was highly desired. Now we've been through several permutations, 'Sweet Cream' and now 'Vanilla' make great African, large-headed, white choices.

Last fall people came in looking for marigolds when I wanted them to be looking for mums. The oranges, yellows and reds make great fall color additions, and since they bloom up to frost, marigolds planted in the spring still looked great in September and October.

Both marigolds and petunias are worth a second look this spring on your trip to the garden center. Long-blooming and garden-tough. they won't disappoint.

So you want some vines to plant around a fence, trellis or front porch. What should you get?

Vines come in two or three varieties- annual or perennial. Perennial vines like clematis, false hydrangea vine, trumpet vine, hardy jasmine, come back every year, and may even stay somewhat evergreen over the winter. Like regular perennials, they have a limited bloom window, then quit.

Our Amish friends tend to grow the best-looking clematis I've ever seen- their secret is to add a small handful of lime to the soil at planting and then every year afterwards.

One of my new favorites is Carolina Jasmine. It is a fragrant evergreen vine that blooms about now. It's great if your eyes can stand more bright yellow after the forsythias and daffodils.

Annual vines, like morning glories, cypress vine, hyacinth bean, sweet peas or scarlet runner bean bloom their little hearts out all summer, and then die. You could try to bring them in, but would most likely not be rewarded for your efforts. Besides, which, getting them untangled would be a mess.

They may, however, reseed themselves (check out a fencepost near our driveway in July, the Cypress vines come up by the thousands). Then are spectacular in September.

The third kind is tropical perennials- not hardy here, but perennial in the south. These are the ones you can bring in year after year- Mandevillas, bougainvillea, pink Pandora vine, and passion flowers. They tend to bloom most of the summer.

I like vines because they grow quickly and can hide things you don't want to see. Your porch railing needs painting? Your neighbors chain link fence an eyesore? Plant a vine.

You want some height in a mixed container and don't want to do spikes again? Add a hoop or small trellis and a vine.

Unfortunately most vines need sun. About the only one I can think of for shade is Schizophragma- false hydrangea vine.

Annual or perennial, ornamental vines add color and visual interest to most landscapes, and don't have to eat your house.

Photos: Top left Clematis 'Venosa Violacea', middle right Morning glory 'Heavenly Blue', Bottom left Schizophragma 'Roseum'.