Of all the months of the year, May has to be the most cantankerous. April is blustery and wet, with occasional sun. June through August is one long hot spell. September and October are pretty, but erratic. November through March is one long brown, gray spell.

But May is alive with color. It's alive with cool temperatures followed by warm days. It's alive with winds that whip dust and sand particles on new unfolding leaves, ripping holes in them. Sure, it dries the soil, too.

May is the month of short-sleeves and shorts and the start of summer burns. It's the month when the gardening bug really starts arriving. It's the time when you have to stop procrastinating and actually get out and start to care for the yard and garden.

And it's the month when the garden centers, nurseries, home improvement stores, hardware stores and grocery stores sell all sorts of plants. While you're at it, just drive to the corner gas station and pick up several bags of mulch that have been stacked there since March. March 2000, that is.

May is the time when I put on the sunglasses, which is the extent of my incognito powers, and make my rounds looking for those perfect plants.

Part of me feels that the garden centers hate me coming. Sure, they like my money. But they probably don't like my kind.

You see, my kind is the type that inspects every plant within an iota of its life. I look under the leaves checking for insects, their eggs and any sign of disease. If any are there, I set the plant under the table so others might avoid it.

I feel the weight of the pot and try to gauge the amount of roots to soil. Not all roots. Not all soil. If roots are coming out the bottom of the pot like Oprah in a size 4 dress, put it back. It's been growing too well, but it might have problems when it's transplanted.

I give the perennials, annual bedding plants and vegetables a light tug. Of course, you must do this carefully and hopefully away from the watchful eye of the nursery employee. But there should be some resistance between your pull and the plant. Eventually, the plant should slip from the pot.

If it slips out of the pot as easily as greased pig from your hand (if you've ever done that), the soil probably has dried too often and the root ball not expanded properly. Go to another plant.

Any plant that is taller than an elephant's eye is bypassed. Look for something short and stocky. Legginess belongs on a fashion runway, not in the garden.

In a perfect, ideal world where the Chicago Cubs win the World Series, plants shouldn't have any flowers or fruits on them when you buy the plants. That means all the plant's energy has gone into producing good roots and shoots. Once a plant starts producing flowers, and the subsequent fruit and/or seed, all the plant's energy goes into reproduction and none into growth.

True story: I saw a child in a garden center years ago present his mom with a handful of labels from some bedding plants. That was a nice present. Unfortunately, they weren't attached to the pots. And they were from a wide variety of plants, which now were somewhat unidentifiable to most people, who fortunately probably didn't care. As much as I hate to buy anything in flower, from that day on, I made sure every flat of vinca and petunias was in full flower. I could just imagine my massive plantings of flowers being spotted with a few odd colors. Probably pink. So, as soon as I've purchased the plants, off come the flowers and flower buds. You'll probably see my path in the parking lot leading toward an empty parking space. This means I won't get the first tomato on the block, but I can live with that. It does mean a stronger and healthier plant in my garden.

Now, if I can only convince the garden center to allow me to pull out all the mixed colors in a batch of plants and substitute identically colored ones. At least out in the open.

David Robson is an Extension Educator, Horticulture, at the Springfield Extension Center, University of Illinois Extension. You can write to Robson in care of Illinois Country Living, P.O. Box 3787, Springfield, IL 62708. Telephone: (217) 782-6515. E-Mail: robsond@mail.aces. uiuc.edu

16   ILLINOIS COUNTRY LIVING www.aiec.org