• Keep your lawn lush and green all summer by feeding it with Dr. Earth Lawn Fertilizer. Apply now, lasts up to 3 months.

• Deciduous Fruit Trees: Thin out fruits on your fruit trees. Read “June Drop Don’t Panic” article for more information. Start pruning early bearing fruit trees right after harvest. This will help slow down overly vigorous trees and keep trees smaller in size. Cut off obvious dead branches and branches that rub or criss-cross one another. Remove limbs with no fruit and space branches to allow remaining fruit to grow.

• Mulching: If you didn't do so last month, there is still time to apply mulch to your flower beds, trees, shrubs and vegetable gardens. We recommend using Black Forest (on sale now) or Bumpercrop. Apply a 2" layer of mulch around your plants. Read about the many benefits of mulching in “Now is the Time to Mulch” article.

• Cut back your roses, hybrid teas, floribundas and grandifloras; you will be rewarded with lush new growth and beautiful color. Give a feeding with Dr. Earth Rose Fertilizer, Master Nursery Iron Plus and Sul-Po-Mag.

• Keep your eyes out for mites this month. Mites develop rapidly during the summer. Dry conditions, dusty leaves and drought stressed plants only encourage their activity. Symptoms include pale speckled leaves, fine webbing on the leaf, bronzing of foliage. Keep plants hydrated. Regular watering as well as washing down leaves with a forceful nozzle spray can keep mite problems to a minimum. Do this regularly to remove dust and increase humidity. For heavy infestations, apply Monterey Take Down Spray. It contains pyrethrin and canola oil that will kill mites at any stage including eggs.

• Is hard clay soil or excess runoff a problem? Try Monterey Perc-O-Late Plus. Perc-O-Late Plus increases water penetration by increasing the rate at which water soaks into the soil, meaning greater water efficiency and less waste of water. Apply with a hose end applicator or sprinkler can.

Coneflowers (Echinacea species) are native American wildflowers that have found their way into our gardens because of their stunning beauty and hardiness. Originally only available in shades of purple and lavender, coneflowers now come in a wide range of colors. Thanks to the efforts of breeders across the country, they can now be found in shades of pink, white, purple, yellow, orange and salmon. They come in a range of sizes as well, from dwarf coneflowers that grow only 18" high and wide to varieties that grow 4-5' high and half as wide.

The 3-5" diameter flowers on these robust deciduous perennials are arranged above sturdy, elongated, upright stems that are perfect for cutting and last in a vase from 5-7 days. The flowers have somewhat weeping petals that surround a coned center (thus, the name) and are produced from summer into fall.

Coneflowers prefer full sun locations and regular watering in well-drained soil that keeps them moist, but not wet. They require a couple of feedings per year of a good flower food to keep them healthy and strong.

Coneflowers make an excellent addition to any perennial garden and also look great in border or container plantings. They are a perfect selection for butterfly gardens. We invite you to stop by and take some home today!

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Do your last thinning on deciduous fruit trees after June drop, nature's way of getting rid of an overload of fruit. It may occur any time between early May and July but is most likely to happen in June. One day you visit your deciduous fruit tree and find a circle of immature fruit lying on the ground under the branches. You may worry if you are new to fruit trees, but don't panic! It's a natural part of the cycle. These trees often set more than double the amount of fruit they could possibly ripen properly, so they simply drop off part of it.

If you thinned out fruit on your trees earlier, you enabled the remaining fruit to grow larger and thus will have less fruit dropping now. Nevertheless, you may need to remove even more fruit than naturally drops in order to space your crop evenly down the branches. Inspect other deciduous fruit trees that are less subject to June drop and thin out their fruits also.

Clean up any fallen fruit under the tree before it has a chance to rot and spread disease. If it's healthy, chop it and add it to your compost pile (cover it with earth to keep away flies and rodents). Also water your deciduous fruit trees deeply in June and July.

How can I keep cats from using my vegetable garden for a litter box?

Answer:
First of all, remove any existing calling cards from your vegetable garden. If you can identify which one of your delightfully inconsiderate neighbors allows their cat to do his business in your garden, place the calling cards in a plastic bag on their front doorstep, ring the doorbell, and run. This gives the game "doorbell ditch" a whole new perspective--especially if you weren't able to play the game as a child.

If you don't have the time or the legs to play this game, a better solution is to sneak into your neighbor's yard at night and over-seed their garden with catnip. Their cat will be in pure heaven and never want to leave.

Kidding aside, there are a number of naturally safe repellents that should make Fifi think twice about using your garden as her personal toilet. If an electric fence or chicken wire isn't your cup of tea, consider applying a commercial cat repellent like Ro-Pel Outdoor Dog & Cat Repellent. The key to using a repellent is to consistently re-apply the product until Fifi associates the desired area with the bad smell.

Home remedies like moth balls (inside coffee cans with small holes in lids) or cayenne pepper shaken around the exterior of the bed have also been known to be somewhat effective. Mulching may help, and keeping the garden soil moist. Cats like loose, dry soil to bury their doings in. You may want to try to catch Fifi in the act and spray her with water. This will make you feel better but, unfortunately, rarely deters a persistent cat.

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