June is the time to pour yourself a long glass of iced tea and enjoy your garden and landscape! You have my permission to make it a Long Island type if you have finished spreading all that mulch!
I’m honest enough to admit that almost everything in my life can really benefit from a little tidying up! The shaggies happen in all gardens: It’s not a dance, or a hairdo—or some variant on the delightful British slang for sex. It’s my nemesis, plain and simple, one that descends on my gardens when spring blooms are done, leaving behind what seems like nothing but deadheads, underplanted with a whole new palette of emerging weeds–the icky fast spreading kind.
June is for weeding and watering
It’s much easier to keep up with weeds weekly then try to tackle them after a long hiatus. Make a pass each week, with hand or hoe, through each garden bed, since weeds are not just unsightly but steal moisture, nutrients and light from desired plants you need to get rid of them early and often! Apply mulch to all beds to help in the plight!
Don’t skip the watering! Your garden and landscapes want an inch of water a week from you or Mother Nature. In my experience Mother Nature can be stingy and not want to give you that needed soaking twice a week. Check your rain gauge to make sure they get it, and remember: when you do water, soak deeply in the root zone. Don’t spritz things with a sprayer now and again like you’re washing the car! Pots need extra attention and usually need to be watered every day now, especially smallish ones in sun, and they also need regular feeding.
WHAT? Didn’t plant up your pots yet? (I was so busy in May I started late, too, actually.) Plenty of time still, and we have advice and ideas for taking your containers up a notch this year.
Do you still want vegetables all summer? Many of those early plantings like lettuce, spinach and peas won’t last once it really warms up. I make room for more with the practice of succession plantings. Every 2 weeks or so I remove all the bolting, bitter or just plain done plants and replace them with new! Fresh baby leaf lettuce all summer long!
You haven’t missed tomato time! These ambitious producers will catch up and bear fruit even if they go into the ground on July 4th in my garden (but early June is best here). Plant deep, and use heavy cages. Eggplant and peppers can also go in the ground early this month. You’ve still got time to plant that edible garden!
In your flower garden some perennials may be so tired they need a full cutback now. My perennial geraniums, particularly the great groundcover Geranium macrorrhizum and Candytuft are like that. You sometimes have to make things worse for the garden to look better in the long run.
Spring flowering shrubs like lilacs get pruned now. Later pruning (after about July 4th) risks damage to emerging buds for next year’s blooms. Clean up unsightly deadheads of other big bloomers like rhododendron if you care to, and other things that don’t make showy fruit next–anything where leaving behind the faded blooms just looks messy. With fruiting things (roses that make nice hips, viburnums , you get the idea…) faded flowers are left intact to set beautiful, bird-feeding fruit.
Are you having design issues and parts of your yard are just not coming together visually? Rick always has valuable tips on reducing lawn areas and massing plants for visual impact, and Alec can help you find the plant you didn’t even know you needed! If you’re feeling stuck, I suggest stopping in to see us! At the best we’ve got inspiration and ideas and at worst we can provide a shoulder to commiserate on because we’ve been there and done that too!
We look forward to seeing you soon!
Michelle and Team Lakeview
