JUNE GARDENING TIPS
- Summer is really here! Lots of sun and rain. Get your annuals planted now. Add a little general-purpose fertilizer and water well.
- Fertilize perennials, roses, shrubs and vegetables using a balanced fertilizer, not the one for your lawn, it has too much nitrogen. Pull back the mulch (that should already be there) from the perennials. Dig the fertilizer in lightly around each plant and replace the mulch.
- Start cutting your lawn higher/longer and leave cuttings on the lawn as fertilizer.
- Prune spring-blooming shrubs and trees (lilac, forsythia) after they have flowered.
- Prune evergreens and hedges now, not later in the summer.
- Finish removing all daffodil and tulip flower stems. Leave leaves to mature and feed the bulb for next year’s bloom. Add a little bone meal around bulb clumps to promote bulb growth for next year.
- Stake or cage tomato plants, dahlias, gladiolas, peony plants, etc.
- Thin vegetable seedlings and plant successive crops. (Plant a second crop as the first is maturing eg. lettuce, spinach, radishes.)
- Seed flowering cabbage/kale into garden rows for later transplanting.
- Plant seeds of fast-growing flowers such as cosmos, marigold, calendula, etc.
- If desired, move houseplants outside to a protected area.
- Deadhead (cut off) faded blooms on plants such as petunia, rose, verbena, etc. This will promote continuous blooms and bushy plants for the second half of the summer.
- Weed and water garden beds as needed.
- Add mulch to suppress weed growth and hold in moisture – at least 2 inches.
- Cut back by one third, late bloomers such as mums and asters. This will make them bushier and give them a mounded shape and more blooms in the fall.
- Turn compost regularly and check moisture level, not too wet, not too dry, just right, like Goldielocks.
- Take cuttings of perennials, shrubs, roses, etc. for rooting.
- Watch for local plant sales like the Giant Plant Sale at St. George’s Anglican Church in Clarksburg, Saturday June 11 2022. It starts at 8 am. Entry by car only. Choose from a wide variety of choice perennials for sun or shade, named Daylilies, raspberry canes and shrubs at really reasonable prices. 599 Garden Club experts will provide advice. Meet your resident Master Gardener at the sale to answer your horticultural questions.
John Hethrington has been gardening since the age of nine. He spent his early life gardening in Toronto and earned his certification as a Master Gardener before moving to Meaford where he cultivates 2.5 acres with 20 different gardens.
