Early June

Important Garden Tasks to Do Now

Catch Problem areas early in Summer and Save yourself some Work.

A ‘clean’ perennial garden in early June after 2 hours of weeding, pruning and staking.

Last year we went out to Colorado in late August to visit my son and his family. I was looking at his vegetable garden which was full, green and organic. All of a sudden he bent over and with each hand pulled out 2 hunks of something green with a white flower. “I hate bindweed! Look at this, it’s everywhere!” he yelled!

This is the time of year it’s a good thing if you can grab your pruners, gloves and weeding tools and head out to the garden for a few hours work. Little problems now can cause big headaches in a month or so when everything has gotten big and heat stressed, including you.

Easier Tasks of ‘Dead Heading’

‘Dead heading’ means that you cut off dead flowers that are finished blooming. Red hot poker (Kniphofia) should be dead headed now so you can get a second set of blooms. Cut down to where the stalk comes out of the foliage near the base of the plant.

In this photo of Red Hot Poker, you can see the dead stalks in the foreground and still blooming flowers in the background.

(A side note: This Red Hot poker is a dramatic perfect plant for a hot dry space. It can to get to 3-4′ high and wide.)

Dead head iris. These will not re-bloom again after dead heading. Dead heading iris however, directs more energy to the rhizomes for strong blooms next year.

If you want to move iris now that is fine. Cut the leaves the shape of your hand and plant in a sunny spot just an inch below the soil. (See my previous blog from last spring entitiled ” Bearded Iris: Vibrant Color and Easy Maintenance”).

Dead head peonies

This is a pretty easy task. Cut off old flower heads and part of the flower’s stem down to where the stem blends into the plant’s round shape.

Cut back columbine stems and dry it’s seeds for later planting.

You need to move quickly before seeds drop for this task. You can see a pod in the photo below where blooms once were. These pods are filled with what looks like black dots which are seeds.

Cut the stem of the columbine plant down to the foliage. Throw the stem and pod into a bucket for a month or so. You don’t want the bucket’s contents to get wet. Once the seeds dry, shake or squeeze them out of the pod into another container. There will be a lot that have fallen off on their own at the bottom of the bucket.

Before autumn leaves fall, scratch away a few inches of soil in a shady place and sprinkle them on top of the dirt. If you don’t have time to scratch dirt, just throw them in the woods or under a tree.

These seeds are great presents to give you gardener friends and family for the holidays.

Cut back tree suckers

Cut back any suckers coming up from your crape myrtle and fruit trees. You want to have the tree give energy high up to where there are leaves and blossoms..not down low by the ground.

To cut off the sucker on our peach tree, we will have to lift up or take off the deer guard we have around the trunk.

The photo to the right is crape myrtle suckers. Cutting them back is a 2 or 3 time summer task. They pop out on the main trunks regularly.

Cut any dead limbs off shrubs.

I’m not sure you can see the dead stem below on the lower right of this piers japonica. The plant is sending energy to revive the dead branch. Let energy go to healthy leaves and blooms by cutting off dead branches.

Tougher Tasks

Find and pull bindweed

Bindweed is a horrible weed. This weed’s flower looks like morning glory. It is not morning glory. It spreads quickly and winds around anything in it’s way. If you wait months or so to pull bindweed, it is everywhere in your garden. Check your garden once a week and pull it as soon as you can. The picture on the right is the pile of bindweed pulled after an hour of weeding. It covered the garden floor of this perennial garden and wound it’s way up at least half of the plants.

Morning glory is shown below. It’s a pretty close match, right?

Weed

Check weeds at the base of each plant. Try to get those especially. If you don’t now, they intermingle with the main root or stalk of the plant which is tough to sort out in August!

You will see lots of imposter weeds. Nature is intelligent in that weeds mimic the plant leaf they are near. I have pulled imposters in my own garden 3′ tall not realizing their true identity till they bloom in the summer.

Stake up fallen stems if they are not bent in half. Remember to pull the stalk up to the post. I really like the velcro tie ups, It’s easier for my gnarled old hands to use.

In the photo below, I am using jute string, which also does the job. Just don’t pull the string so tightly that it saws into the plant stem.

I wish I had a more exciting topic. There is no dodging the fact that any garden takes a lot of work if you want to feel good about your plantings and show them off. It’s tough to find someone who knows gardens, and who you can afford to hire. I’m happy to figuratively clap my hands and boss you around every so often in a blog!

Christie lives in Manakin Sabot , Virginia where she manages a 3 acre garden. Her blogs are written from her 35 years as a personal and professional gardener.