For your scented garden, add these June bloomers: gardenia, star
jasmine and tuberose.
Both warm and cool season lawns should be fertilized now.
Remove any fruit clustered too closely together. There should be six
inches of space between apples, pears, peaches and
nectarines.
Dead spots on the lawn? Make sure your sprinklers are hitting those
areas. Scattering several equal-sized containers throughout the lawn
during an irrigation can help you determine who's wet and who
isn't.
Most lawns only need to be watered two or three times a week at most;
a deep, thorough watering could lower that total to once per
week.
During the summer heat, your lawn needs about two inches of water per
week. To find out how much water your sprinklers are applying to your
lawn, place several flat bottomed containers (such as tuna fish cans)
around your lawn, turn on the sprinklers for a half hour, and then
measure the water in the containers. Adjust your sprinkler time
accordingly.
Successive plantings of vegetables will prolong the harvest. Plant
radishes, carrots, snap beans and corn every two weeks through
July.
Remove faded flowers from annuals to encourage new blooms.
Mark the raspberry and blackberry vines that are producing fruit now.
Those are the vines that should be cut down to the ground at the end
of the season.
Check for and discard young tomato hornworms on the underside of
tomato leaves.
Cut back Mexican primroses (evening primroses) this month to keep
them from getting leggy.
Water plants early in the day to ensure maximum growth and minimum
disease problems.
Battling crabgrass? Not all weedkillers can thwart this annual pest.
Make sure that the herbicide you are using lists crabgrass control on
the label.
Add summer color to your yard now with vincas, marigolds, petunias,
bedding dahlias and impatiens. Fertilize on a monthly basis to keep
them blooming until the first frost.
Wood chips, used as a mulch around plants, can suppress weeds,
conserve soil moisture and enhance the plants' root
growth.
Going on vacation? Water all houseplants thoroughly before leaving.
Then, place them out of direct sunlight to help them retain moisture.
If you have automatic sprinklers, make sure that the control unit's
backup battery is fresh, thus averting a lawn and garden disaster in
case of a power outage while you're gone.
Don't fertilize your lawn or plants in the two weeks prior to your
vacation. The new growth will require more water while you're away.
Remove fading or dead rose blooms before go on vacation. Nipping
these will redirect the plant to produce more rose blossoms instead
of energy-sapping rose hips while you're away.