June In the Garden

It’s time for the monthly show focused on the highlights of the coming month. What to pay attention to, what flowers this time of year, and everything else. Master Gardeners Teena and Katrina share their experiences from their own gardens right now. It’s June on “This Month In The Garden with UC Master Gardeners”. One striking element Orange County listeners might pick up on is the distinct differences in flower blooming times between a garden that is 5 miles as compared to another garden 20 miles away FROM THE COAST!  For our worldwide listeners, this also holds true as things bloom at different times in different climatic zones.  In this episode, you'll learn how to plant a Bougainvillea, divide your Bearded Irises, and braid your onions. Experiment with growing edibles ANYWHERE!  Hear what long-time gardeners experience over the years when their gardens are forever changing! Let our hosts prepare you for everything JUNE! 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to In the Garden with University of California Master Gardeners. I'm Tina Spindler and I'm here with Katrina Kirkabee and we'll be leading you through what to do in the month of June. Welcome, June. About to have summer. You ready, Katrina? I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

I've really enjoyed May, but I know I can't hold on to it forever. May was so pretty, but I guess I'm ready for June. There's stuff to do in the garden, and I'm ready.

SPEAKER_00 0:31

Well, we we had a little bit of May Gray, and uh my guess is we'll probably have June gloom because that's pretty much how we roll. I don't think you get as much of it as I do because you're further inland, right?

SPEAKER_01 0:43

Exactly. You have it more for the whole day. Mine tends to burn off earlier.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

Yeah. So um, so we do have June gloom. That means that you probably need to take a little bit of time and do some work to prevent uh some of the diseases that are encouraged by moist air, like powdery mildew and and other fungal diseases. And so that is a lot controlled by hopefully you planted your plants properly, didn't try to squeeze them in too close together, like I used to do with my tomatoes. And um, and if if you did, uh when you see first signs of powdery mildew, then spray with a fungicide to uh prevent it from getting worse. And or if it's like zucchini leaves, cut off those big leaves that are showing powdery mildew and get rid of them.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

And the biggest thing is treat them as soon as you can, whatever you do. It's one of those, there's a lot of things you could put off in the garden, but when you have pests and powdery mildew, it's just like I drop everything else and like I know it's not my most fun thing to deal with. You know, I'd rather be playing with flowers, but if I don't take care of, you know, powdery mildew and pests, it just gets so much worse and so much harder to take care of. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 2:05

So so that'll be the biggest challenge during June gloom is to notice those fungal diseases and take care of them right away. But the the big benefit of June is June bloom because June is a very bloomy month for perennials. It's wonderful. I love the gardens in June. If if you have uh a lot of flowering perennials, June is May and June are often the months where they really just go off and are crazy. Um, I know you brought me today when we were going to record this show, hydrangeas from your garden. Aren't they pretty? They are. So Katrina's actually start blooming uh in May, and and mine are just showing their blossoms, but they'll they'll bloom in in June because I'm closer to the coast.

SPEAKER_01 2:56

And you know that's something to talk about, Tia, because we talk about this happening, that happening, but it's interesting because you and I meet every month, and my garden is usually ahead of yours. And when things are completely done in my garden, yours are blooming.

SPEAKER_00 3:11

Yeah. It's that that change of temperature from you know what, 10 miles inland. Yeah, it's huge.

SPEAKER_01 3:19

So and my hydrangeas have been going for a month like crazy, and yours are just starting.

SPEAKER_00 3:24

Starting, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:25

And how about your uh gardenias? Uh the gardenias are just starting. See, my gardenias, I probably deadheaded about a hundred of them yesterday. Ah, oh my gosh. They've just I have the most. Oh, I love I want to talk about this segue of it. Sometimes you got to find the right plant for the right place. Oh, that's our Master Gardener motto, right? It is, but it's so true. I have this guard, I love gardenias, and I have planet gardenias. This is now my fourth spot. And I thought every other spot was perfect, and they failed. They really weren't that great. I now have a gardenia that I can't even when I lift my hands up, it's like 10 feet tall. Oh my gosh, I've never seen one that is just it's it is so happy in this spot, and I probably have 75, 100 blooms on it right now. Oh my god. It's just prolific. So sometimes you really want to plant and your first choice is doesn't work, and your second choice doesn't work. Sometimes you gotta play around with it because I put it in this spot as my last choice. And I've had it for a number of years now, and it is just grown and it is happy, and it is just it is the perfect spot where I thought the other spots would be perfect. So just heads up, you know, don't give up and um just try to plant them when try a different spot if it is if something you really, really want. And I love my gardenias. Now, when my gardenias, I should have brought you gardenias too. Oh, I love those, yeah. Yeah, you get gardenias.

SPEAKER_00 5:01

The smell of heavenly. So, anyways, segueing, but that's that's well I'm glad you brought up gardenias because um, you know, we can mention a lot of plants that bloom, perennials that bloom in June. Uh, but the perennials that we want to plant in June are often the same ones that are blooming because you can find them at the nursery uh easily, and then you can see exactly the color or you know, size of you know flower that you're gonna get. And gardenias in particular are what we call a more tropical plant, and June is a great time to plant tropicals. So do you know try and look for boginvia, gardenias, um, ginger, crepe myrtles, uh, and from fruit trees, bananas, um, and citrus, avocado, all good to plant this month because they like that warmer weather. So I love the warmer weather.

SPEAKER_01 5:59

And I really, for me, it's like I like to picture what I'm getting. And and sometimes just reading a label is not enough.

SPEAKER_00 6:08

No, because you know, gardenias, for instance, there are gardenias that have uh beautiful flowers, but they're smaller, maybe you know, two inches in diameter, but then there's gardenias that are like three inches in diameter. And you know, how how do you actually know, you know, what it is? You could do research by, you know, looking up the botanical name, but a lot of us don't do that. So when you go to the nursery and you can actually see it in bloom and you can see, you know, that it's a three-inch bloom, that's how my daughter and I chose the gardenia for her yard is we went when they were all blooming and we saw this one that had this giant bloom and said, yeah, that's the one we want. We want the one with the big flower.

SPEAKER_01 6:50

Well, you know, I went for I picked out because I really wanted, I was down and determined for this gardenia. I did look it up and I did look up the size and I did look up the smell, and it doesn't re-bloom. So I did a little bit of homework on it, but I was almost ready to give up.

SPEAKER_00 7:06

Well, that is that is the best idea. That's what we always recommend is is that you do research on the plant because you know there are gardenias that stay only about 14 inches tall, right? They they stay really small, but then the gardenia you have obviously is one that gets much larger.

SPEAKER_01 7:22

I I something's going on with this gardenia because I've never seen one like this. I'm like, what are we doing to this thing? It is just growing, it's bigger than what it's supposed to be, but it's it's it's in a happy spot. It's in a really, really happy spot. That makes all the difference in the world. And if I, you know, just is in a you find a happy spot and fertilize it and love on it, and it's gonna get back to you.

SPEAKER_00 7:44

Yeah, for sure. Um, so what else is blooming? Uh uh of the lantana is taking off, finally starting to bloom at my house. It's probably been blooming for a while.

SPEAKER_01 7:53

It's been blooming for a while at my house.

SPEAKER_00 7:55

I love lantana, it's a foolproof uh landscape, you know, plant. If you want to have something that's low maintenance, uh it's it's a butterfly pollinator attractor. Uh comes in whites, lavenders, yellows, and then that red one that has red and yellow and orange, you know, kind of all mixed in. So there's a color for you know any kind of plant palette if you're trying to stick to pastels or or vibrant colors.

SPEAKER_01 8:25

They're and then what I like about them, they're really easy to take care of. And they're there's a lot of color on them. You get a lot of bang for your buck.

SPEAKER_00 8:33

You do, and they're they're fairly indestructible. Um, the only it's not a complaint, but uh the only thing to be aware of is that they do take shearing, you know, if you want to keep them, you know, under control. I have some on a slope that I just let, you know, go wherever they want to on the slope, but then I have some in a planter, you know, that I don't want taking over the whole thing. So I I keep those sheared. And the nice thing about lantana is they they take to shearing really well because they bloom on new growth. And so you shear them and and all that does is encourage, you know, more flowering.

SPEAKER_01 9:07

So and I have to tell you about my first lantana. I didn't realize they come in different sizes. Okay, pre-master gardener days. This is another plug for read the label because they come in different, they grow to different sizes. So I think if you're out there looking at plants right now, read the label because there's so many plants that in the same lantana that will, or any other plant that could be really 18 inches tall or could be 36 inches tall. So read your labels on your plants right now.

SPEAKER_00 9:41

And I bought yellow, I wanted some yellow lantana, and and I bought, you know, like a dozen four-inch plants, and they happened to be, wasn't really paying attention, but they happened to be the ones that stayed, you know, like 18, 24 inches tall. And then I decided I wanted more and just found the color that looked similar and bought them without really reading it. And now that lantana is four feet tall. So I hear you. And I and I messed up and didn't read the label. So I have some low lantana and then I have some tall lantana. Hopefully the tall is in the back. It well, uh fortunately, I have a big yard, so it it uh it it is fine, but but you're absolutely right. If you're if you're gonna add stuff in June, do take a look at the label and make sure you're getting things that are appropriately sized.

SPEAKER_01 10:31

Um, you know, it's so confusing because she's saying you think if you have didn't know, and if you're not a gardener, or just people just don't think that here's a lantern and here's another lantern, I'll take one of each. And you don't know if it's a you have to read to find out if it's a four-foot one or the 18-inch one.

SPEAKER_00 10:48

Well, the sad thing is is often if you buy them at big box retailers, they don't give you on their labels necessarily all the info you would like to have. So um, if it is critical to you that something be of an appropriate size and you don't have it on the label, you know, go to another store and and find one that does give you the info that you that you need. But yeah, no, there's so many, so many cool things that you can still plant this month.

SPEAKER_01 11:15

You know, and I know people are really busy, and so one of the things is like saving them time ahead of time is if you do take the time to look at that, because I have tried to manage plants that have grown too big for the area that I hadn't paid attention to, and I spend so much time pruning them versus buying and pruning them and then pruning them either every few months or every six months or every year versus getting the right size. And I don't have to deal with that all the time, and it just saves me time is precious, and I'd rather be enjoying my yard than having to constantly maintain something that is too big for the area. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 11:56

So, just to finish our list kind of of what's blooming this month that you might want to consider adding to your yard, is um we've talked about hydrangea, lantana, um, fuchsia. If you have shady areas and you like to grow things in pots and it's cool, uh Katrina uh doesn't really like fuchsia because it's too hot at her house for it, but it's great closer to the coast. Um, Agapanthus, you know, which used to be kind of everywhere in Southern California and it's kind of disappeared, but it's still a great plant if you want something that's you know low maintenance and you really don't have to do much, and it blooms every June. Uh, so you'll you'll find those in bloom this time of year. And they now come in uh some really pretty super dark blues rather than just that kind of middle blue that they used to. I have the middle blue, I like the dark blue. They really dark blue is really pretty, and they also come now in um a little bit shorter bloom, so they're not you know quite the tall uh stick uh with the bloom on top, they come a little bit shorter, which I think looks a little better in smaller yards. So look for those. And as far as vines, oh, the trumpet vines will be blooming this month, all different kinds of trumpet vines with yellow flowers, purple flowers, red flowers. So if you have a fence or a place where you want a gazebo or a patio cover, something that you'd like to have a blooming vine on, uh consider the trumpet vines. Those are really, really pretty. They're pretty and they're hardy, and they have a long bloom season. Um, and then mandiva. I I've been using mandiva sort of a lot recently in pots because it's pretty drought tolerant, so it's not too fussy if I forget to water it. Um, and it's no pests that I've experienced anyway. And it's there's a lot of it out there, so there's a lot of growers doing mandavia.

SPEAKER_01 13:50

And I think there's a reason why, because they are they are they're not temperamental.

SPEAKER_00 13:55

Exactly. So consider Mandivilla if you also want to vine. Um bogin via, of course, is a very traditional California vine that we that we love, uh, vine slash shrub, because it it doesn't really vine vine, it it grows into more of a and actually has stickers, right? So, but to get it started can be a little bit tricky. Uh, it's its roots are a little delicate. And so if you want to plant a new one, um you want to dig a hole about twice the size of the container. So if it's a gallon container, twice that size, if it's five gallon, twice that size in width only. You don't want the hole to be deep because uh they do not like to be soggy. So you don't want their crown to sink below ground level. You want it planted at ground level. And then you really want to be careful when you we often tell everybody to tickle the roots, you know, when you take it out of a pot. And with Bogan Via, don't tickle the roots. Just gently slide that um pot off of it, set it in the hole, backfill it with the amended soil that you've dug out, and then put a small watering basin around it, you know, where you raise the soil up, but that's only temporary. That's just to keep the water in, you know, for the first uh, you know, couple months over the summer while it's you know hot, you do want to make sure that that the water comes in. But over the long term, you want that uh earth to be the same level as the root ball of that plant. For many bogunvias, and again, this is where you need to read the label, uh, there are some that have been bred to stay relatively short. So if you've seen in people's yards or landscapes where they kind of keep them trimmed into sort of mounds and they're not really growing up a wall or anything, make sure you're looking at the label to see what the height of it is. Because as we all know, if we've grown up in California, I mean there are walls that are covered with bogan villa.

SPEAKER_01 16:00

We moved into our house almost 30 years ago, and the bougain villas are still there. You know, they're just fairly hardy, don't have to do a lot. They were established.

SPEAKER_00 16:11

Well, if you go down to San Juan Capistrano Mission, right? I mean, they've got bougain vias all over the mission, and heaven knows how long they've been there. You know, they're they're climbing up walls, you know, 10, 12 feet high. Um, the house I grew up in in Huntington Beach, my parents planted one over a patio cover, and that thing just ended up looking like a roof, you know, this big pink roof that bloomed so much over that patio cover.

SPEAKER_01 16:37

We had a shed down below, which is we had to take out the bougain villa, but it was one of the most beautiful things because we had plenty of room and we just let it go. Yeah. And it was just, oh, it was tall and it was wide, and it was just perfect. And we didn't just water it once in a while. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:57

Now where I have mine, I have mine growing up uh over um a trellis that that is over a French door, two French doors, uh, which looks quite lovely. It's beautiful, but that one you do have to prune because you want to keep it, you know, in the shape of the trellis. Uh, and then I have some in the back that are just growing up uh walls, and I keep those pruned to kind of a pillar shape. So you can keep them pruned, and they actually bloom on new growth also.

SPEAKER_01 17:27

Yeah, we have the ones in our front we keep pruned. Yeah. Yeah, because we want to size control it and not get too big, but that one that we had down below, because you could see it from we live on a hill and you could just see it. It was just stunning. It was such a statement this thing made. It was beautiful, it was in a happy spot.

SPEAKER_00 17:45

Or if you ever drive down Coast Highway, you know, into Laguna Beach, and you just drive past some of those homes that have been there forever, and they've got the same thing. These just walls of Bogan Villa that are stunningly beautiful. Um and and there is uh actually a Bogan Villa food that um that I I like to use because I really like it to be kind of spectacular. So right before it starts to bloom in the spring, um I feed it and then I'll probably feed it this month for the last time to to keep the the blooms going. But but uh giving it a little bit of food really does enhance the flowering if if you want to try that. And then I don't know if you get the um there's a larva uh that eats my boginvia in this area. I've never had anything. Yeah, we maybe because it's moist here, I don't know, moisture. Um, so I do sometimes have to spray it with BT to um get rid of the when when you start seeing a bunch of holes in your leaves uh from this larva eating it, then it's a good idea to get out the BT and give it a spray.

SPEAKER_01 18:53

Yeah, that's really nice having both of us live in a distance apart because we have different issues. I think so. I've never I'm sitting there going, there's a problem with bokeh and just grow, fertilize it once in a while and cut it back.

SPEAKER_00 19:05

Yeah, there's some kind of pest around here because it's not just me. I've yeah, I've seen it elsewhere. So uh, you know, and it doesn't kill it, it just makes it look not so great. So if you have the time, you know, get a little BT out and and give it a spray. Uh, for those folks who who may not know, the product is called Bacillus theringensis, and it is a spray that will kill uh any larva, um, including butterfly caterpillars. So you want to be very judicious how you use it. You use it on tomato plants if you see those tomato hornworms, but you don't want to use it indiscriminately because you'll also kill butterflies. So just use it directly on the plant where you see a problem, and uh hopefully you won't kill any butterflies while you're doing it.

SPEAKER_01 19:52

And please, please, please don't kill the butterflies. We like butterflies are good.

SPEAKER_00 19:57

And and read the directions always, you know, how how much to use, how to mix it. You can buy it pre-mixed, but if you don't buy it pre-mixed, you know, be sure and read the directions on how to mix it and spray it.

SPEAKER_01 20:08

You know, unless you have a large area and you do a lot of gardening, that sometimes pre-mix is just such an easy way to go.

SPEAKER_00 20:15

Uh, you know, that's what I tell folks. Now I have a big yard, so I will mix stuff on my own. But in general, when we're giving master gardener advice, you know, in uh presentations or hotlines or whatever, it it is safer for the plants in you if you buy it, buy it pre-mixed.

SPEAKER_01 20:33

You know, most of the houses here in Orange County don't have the huge yards, so there's no reason to go and buy something in a huge amount, even though it's cheaper by huge amounts. But if you're not going to use it that much or that often, just make it easy. Yeah, that's what I do. And then it's mixed, right? And you're not do putting it into the environment too much.

SPEAKER_00 20:53

Well, and especially, you know, like for my my daughter who's, you know, works full-time and has kids, it's like, you know, she doesn't have the time, you know, to mix things into a sprayer and you know, while she's got toddlers running around. It's just buy the one that's already pre-mixed, spray it while they're napping so they can't even see that you're doing it, and then put it away up high um until the next time you need it. It's a much, much better way to go. So let's finish up uh flower gardens. What else should we do this month? Oh, um, do you have bearded iris? You have some bearded iris down here. Not anymore. Not anymore. I still have them and I really need to divide mine. And this is uh the month to divide them, um, but wait until they're done blooming, because if if they are still blooming, you know, you don't want to divide them and ruin the bloom. But once they're finished blooming, uh, you want to dig up the entire clump because what happens is they quit blooming when the clumps get too large and woody. And so to refresh them, you want to dig up the entire clump and look at the rhizom. Which is that thick part that's, you know, barely under the surface. And you want to use a sharp knife to cut off what look like healthy rhizomes, nice and plump, and they have a little spray of leaves, you know, coming out of one end. You'll notice in the center of the clump will be older looking rhizomes that don't have leaves coming out, and they look maybe kind of shriveled. And so that part you're going to want to throw away. You just want to cut off and save the healthy looking ones, which are usually on the outer perimeter.

SPEAKER_01 22:32

Tina, do you do this every year or every few years?

SPEAKER_00 22:34

No, you do it every few years, and I probably haven't done it for five years. Probably should do it every three, but you know, time gets away. Um but yeah, by by the end of three years after that, your blooms will end up just, you know, falling off and not getting very many of them. So in a perfect world, try and do it about every three years. And then what you do to replant them is uh there'll be some roots, and you want to just trim off the roots and leave about three inches hanging down, and then leave them to just sit out for a couple of hours while you do something else, while you dig the holes for where you're going to replant them. And uh and then you just replant them. Um, I like to do like three or four pieces, and the way you do it is you uh point the part that has the leaves on planted outward to the outer part of the hole that you've dug, so that you end up having like three or four of these plants kind of in a little ring.

SPEAKER_01 23:34

So you're saying one hole and then point the leaves out to the edge of the hole.

SPEAKER_00 23:40

Yeah. And you don't bury them very deep. The rhizomes are, you know, just under an inch of soil or so. And yeah, and then add, you know, add a little fertilizer uh as you dig your hole and amend the soil.

SPEAKER_01 23:53

And you can really tell when it's time to do it because you don't get blooms, or the blooms just I mean, what happened to these beautiful blooms I used to get, and now I don't get very good blooms or none at all.

SPEAKER_00 24:04

I got a couple, you know, and so they're done. So I know it's time this year I really need to dig them up and divide them and replant them. So so that's a task to do in June. And then also we talked about our roses, which probably started blooming in uh end of April or May. And if you want them to keep blooming prolifically, you want to feed them after each bloom cycle and deadhead them, of course. Uh, deadheading and feeding encourages them to bloom more. Have you gotten any powdery mildew? I haven't yet. Surprisingly. I got that. Isn't that funny? Yeah, I got it. Yeah. No, no powdery mildew. But I've noticed in our neighborhood some of the oaks have powdery mildew.

SPEAKER_01 24:50

The oaks do?

SPEAKER_00 24:51

Yeah. Oaks get powdery mildew also, the new growth. So um, yeah, I'm kind of surprised I haven't gotten any powdery mildew yet. But you know what? All of my roses that were in part shade have died. So maybe that's why I'm the ones that are in full sun aren't getting powdery mildew. So there's a lesson for you. Don't plant roses in part shade. Well, they they were in sun when I planted them, but then trees grew. You know how that how that goes.

SPEAKER_01 25:17

You know, that's a really good point to bring up, Tina. Uh, we had to take down a tree because it was leaning into our neighbor's yard. And now I'm looking at the grass needs more water, and I have this fern garden that I don't know if I'm gonna be able to keep or not. Oh, yeah. Because it's been it's been happy for years and years and years. This wonderful, happy fern garden, and it's doing okay now, but we haven't hit the hot summer yet.

SPEAKER_00 25:47

When it gets into the 90s, they probably won't be happy.

SPEAKER_01 25:50

Yeah, so it's gonna be real interesting what um, you know, if there's still enough shade because we still have trees, or if that one tree cut out too much of the shade. So you like you said, you know, your trees grew, or sometimes you have to take down a tree. So things change in your garden, and it's like, well, why didn't why was this working this whole time and it's not working now? Well, maybe other things have changed in the garden that you need to look around and say, what's going on?

SPEAKER_00 26:17

Well, and and to me, that's the the fun and beauty of gardens is that they're forever changing. Uh I know at my daughter's house they had to take down a tree too because it was leaning. And I had helped her plant obviously when she moved in five years ago and had chosen all things that would do well in, you know, part shade. And now these things are getting more sun. But what's actually happening is uh because we planted a Stephanotis, a vine, which uh is a beautiful vine, you know, of a tropical type of plant. So good time of year to plant one if you want one. It was traditionally a flower, it's this white waxy flower that was traditionally used in bridal bouquets. I don't know if it still is, but it was back in the day. And it has this lovely scent, and it's a vine, and so I planted one along a fence, and since they took that tree out this year, it's blooming more than it ever did in the past. And I think it's because it's still in a bit of shade, but it's not in dense shade because that tree was taken out, so it can be a benefit too if if you have these changes.

SPEAKER_01 27:27

You know, I was looking also at our garden over the last 30 years, and it's taken on so many different um, I don't know what the word I'm looking for. It's just it's like, wow, this bed is completely different, and I've gone in one direction and then another direction, and they've all made me happy. So feel free to change your garden up too.

SPEAKER_00 27:48

Oh, absolutely, and and don't lament if you know if you lose a tree, or if it, or like I at first was lamenting the loss of my roses because there was too much shade, but now it gives me an opportunity to do other stuff, and so I've under those trees I've been switching to planting things in pots, and which is actually kind of cool the older I get because instead of digging holes or digging the soil to replace a flower bed, now I just have to change out what's in a pot, you know, which I can do one at a time and I don't have to dig, and and it looks really pretty to have this assortment of pots, you know, under the the tree that I can plant with begonias or impatience or something else that will bloom, you know, in the shady area. So so it's all good. You just have to change your attitude, maybe with your plants. I know we get attached to our plants, don't we? Um so uh so yeah, so so feed your roses, deadhead your roses. Oh, the other thing to deadhead this month in my community, uh the common areas are planted with a lot of pride of Madeira, which I love. It has these, they're huge, you know, they're like five to six feet tall, and then they get these blue spikes of flowers on them, just covering them. So they're just stunning when they bloom in April and May. But but they're done now, and so now you just have these, you know, spikes that need to be deadheaded. So if you have Pride of Madeira, uh, which is a great large plant if you have a large space to fill. Um now. It's a really large plant. Really large plant. Really large plant. It grows at least seven feet by seven feet, so it's it's a large plant. Um, but if you have them, uh and the other thing that's cool about them is they will grow on slopes, not super steep slopes, but you know, modest slopes. So it's kind of cool if you've got a slope. Um, because it's always so hard to get up on a slope. You kind of want stuff that's big and covers it. So um, yeah, so anyway, give it a cut. Deadhead those this month. And then if you have any spaces left in your garden after you've bought all these perennials and fertilized all of your perennials, if you still have open spaces, uh June is still a good month to plant your warm season annuals, like you know, marigolds, sunflowers, vincas, zinnias, petunias, cotton. Plant them as soon as you can, though. Yeah, Rebecca. I just last month in um the end of May, just like a week ago, planted zinia seeds, just direct sowed them in the garden and they're sprouting up already.

SPEAKER_01 30:24

So if you do it in the first week or two of June, you can, you know, direct sow some sunflower seeds or zinnia seeds if you if you don't want to splurge on, you know, six packs or it's easy both with sunflowers and zinnias, read the package again because there's there's short little zinnias and there's really tall zinnias, and there's short little sunflowers and there's mammoth sunflowers. Yeah. So read the package. So, but they're both wonderful. I just we planted some a whole bunch of zinnias this year. You know, life was busy, and then we just got flower seeds and they're all coming up now. And um, I think I got them a little too dense in some places, but now I'm taking other plants out, so I'm moving, I'm gonna transplant some that are you know six inches tall or four inches tall into my empty spots because I had all my I had glads coming up. Um my glads are now like okay, we're done. Yeah, so I'm gonna see mine are still going.

SPEAKER_00 31:19

Yours are done. Mine are still.

SPEAKER_01 31:20

No, I it's funny, they're coming up at different times. So I'd say about half of mine are done. Oh, cool. And so there's still some coming up, and but I now that they're done, I can squeeze, you know, some other flowers in there. And I love sunflowers too. I absolutely they make their like my happy flowers.

SPEAKER_00 31:38

They do, they just make you smile when you see them. And there's, and just so folks know when they're choosing seeds, there are multi-branching sunflowers, which are nice in the garden because they'll give you more, you know, color and flowers, but the flowers are smaller. Um, and then there's the sunflower plants that we may think of as the traditional sunflower, which is one stem and one great big, you know, sunflower, which produces the sunflower seeds that the birds eat, that we can eat. Um, so look at the package and decide which you know type of the sunflower is the kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 32:13

I've fallen in love with the multi-branch because it's just I don't know. I've I've always gone for the big ones and like my husband used to plant them as surprises all over our property. Oh, cute. It's really cute. And he he knows I love them, so they pop up everywhere. And but I I really enjoy the different sizes. So you might think of more than if you've got a small area, plant a smaller one. If you've got a big area, plant a you could plant bigger ones, or you you can just plant the small ones in front. And it's just it's kind of neat seeing the different sizes and the different kinds.

SPEAKER_00 32:43

And they they do come in in different colors. I mean, not super different colors. They're all shades of yellow, orange, you know, uh off-white, but but it is kind of fun to get some of the ones that have like the reddish brown tones or the super bright yellow. I think we'd love seeing the birds on them. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:01

You know, just birds, it's just so much fun.

SPEAKER_00 33:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:04

You gotta be careful with squirrels too.

SPEAKER_00 33:06

Oh yeah, I didn't think of that. Yeah, they would love them too.

SPEAKER_01 33:09

Oh man, I've seen the squ the plants, it's the tall ones, the big mammoth ones that's swinging back and forth. Oh my, oh my gosh, what's going on? And the squirrel says, I just found heaven. You know, which is if you take a slingshot out there and try and scare them away. I was like, oh Lord, that they'd just swinging away. Entertainment as well, as food.

SPEAKER_00 33:33

Um, and then the other thing too, if you're planting from seed, I've got to do it today. Uh, I need to, I ran out of snail bait and then I plant these seeds. Well, you gotta bait for snails or you'll lose the seedlings, you know, to the snails. So I gotta run out and put up more snail bait today before my seeds come up. Oh, and speaking of seeds, I was telling Katrina this before we started the show. My husband, uh, because we have grandchildren, decided that he wanted to plant corn for the grandkids to see, as well as pumpkins and watermelon. And so he says, Where can I plant these? And I only have three raised beds for my vegetables. And I said, nowhere. I've got these beds full. You know, there's I don't have any place. I said, but I just we took some trees that were right up against the house. Uh uh uh, we cut them down, and I said, but in the front yard where I just took these trees out, it's completely empty. I was gonna plant succulents there for you know fire reasons. I said, but if you want to plant your little crop out there, you know, for the next couple of months, um, you can do that. So so we have uh watermelon, pumpkin, and corn that will be growing in our front yard.

SPEAKER_01 34:53

I think that's wonderful, Tina. You're laughing like that strange.

SPEAKER_00 34:56

That is so wait till the neighbors are like, what is that?

SPEAKER_01 35:00

But I've had people like, what is this in your flower garden? And I say, it's a cauliflower. And they go, Well, what kind of what what kind of flower is it? And I go, it's a cauliflower like the one you eat. You know, I've I stick things all over the place. And I, you know, some of these vines that you're you're laughing because it's your front yard, but I put these big things like like I have a big vegetable garden. Like, what am I and I run out of room, so I'll stick them underneath a fruit tree and it can run, they can run the pumpkins can go down the hill, and I'll put them in the front yard, I'll put them underneath. Um, we have fruit trees coming up the hill. I can stick a tomato in there, it can kind of grow. It's just just be creative. And Tina, I I when I saw that this morning, I went, yes. You know, you're like perfect in your gardening, but this is a beautiful, it gets a lot of sun.

SPEAKER_00 35:58

And and that's that's the problem for a lot of people in suburbia, you know, is often our front yards are where the best sun is, right?

SPEAKER_01 36:06

Yeah. And I think it's perfect. And I think you're I would be so happy if my husband did that and we had that much sun, or because it's it's a perfect amount of space. You have space and you just sometimes we don't think about, we think about we ought, like we ought to do this or it should look like that. And front yards shouldn't have vegetables. Right. You know, it's supposed to be flowers or bushes or whatever. But who wrote that rule?

SPEAKER_00 36:33

Well, speaking of that, sometimes community associations are particular, and we do have a community association. Um, but I I don't we we also our our front yard is a slope and we plant it at the top of the slope. So as people drive by or walk by, I don't think they're even gonna see it because it's above at the top of the slope.

SPEAKER_01 36:54

So maybe that is I live in on a little dirt and paved. Yeah, you don't have community association. Yeah, well, I don't even have a city, you know. I live in the county, so we're just bypassing a lot of the rules. So I guess it works well for planting what we want to plant when we want to plant it. But yeah, so I guess you pay attention to your homeowners' association rules and what you can get away with and not. But I think you could also be creative in inside that.

SPEAKER_00 37:21

And I and I also think as long as you keep it tidy, nobody's gonna complain. Yeah. What often happens is because vegetables are annuals, you know, they get past their prime and we don't have time to, you know, pull them out or keep them trimmed up or whatever. So just also be aware that, you know, if you're going to venture out into the front yard, you'll probably need to have a little bit of extra time that you can devote to keeping it looking tidy for your neighbors.

SPEAKER_01 37:50

And also, you you know, you could put some herbs out there and you know, a lemon tree. You know, there's things that the HOA would be okay okay with, and they might not even know what it is.

SPEAKER_00 38:01

Well, see, that's the thing with these pumpkins and watermelons, it's just gonna look like ground cover, right? They they they don't get tall.

SPEAKER_01 38:09

And you keep it clean because I think where the whole HOAs, when people just let things die and they have junky old trellises and it looks it just doesn't look so good. Right. But you you there's ways you could do it to make it look attractive.

SPEAKER_00 38:22

Yeah, no, I I think we're fine, but it just cracked me up that my husband took me up on it when I said, Hey, there's room in the front yard. So he's out there digging up tree roots, and now he's got his little farm out in the front yard. I'm so excited. Oh, geez. Um, so let's continue talking about edibles, right? Um, as I mentioned, uh last week of May, my husband planted seeds for watermelon and um uh not zucchini, pumpkins and uh corn. Uh but zucchini also could be planted, you know, another of the squash crops, cucumbers. So in June, you can continue to plant all of these warm season plants, the tomatoes, the green beans, and uh in and in particular, if you if you planted tomatoes early, as I did, and I'm now harvesting tomatoes, which is awesome. Um, but uh in July probably I will plant a second crop because I don't want to be without tomatoes. And the ones that I planted in March will probably be pooping out by July. Yeah, we always do that.

SPEAKER_01 39:32

Yeah. And I find my July tomatoes will, if if it's in the right place in the garden, can carry over into the winter. I know you were picking tomatoes in January. I was picking tomatoes in March. Jeez, from last year's plant. From last March, April. Oh my goodness. I mean, they were there were mostly the cherry tomatoes, smaller tomatoes, but you know, you keep the plant clean and you take care of it, and it and it has to have a lot of sun. Now, all my all our tomatoes didn't make it that long, and you don't get as many. But I love, I was like, we cannot forget to plant in either late June or July because that's what carries. I don't eat I don't buy tomatoes from the store, so I just don't have them. That's so lucky. Uh I don't have them unless we grow them because it's yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:18

My vegetable garden doesn't get enough sun in the in the winter because it starts the sun starts getting behind.

SPEAKER_01 40:24

We have that issue in places too.

SPEAKER_00 40:26

So I I stick to lettuces back there in the wintertime.

SPEAKER_01 40:29

Well, we had a fruit tree that died this year. Oh I know, so is blood orange, it was just wonderful. We went on vacation and came home and it was gone. I don't know what happened, but um, we took it out and we hadn't put in a fruit tree, and so we're like, well, we we have like 30 some fruit trees. Do we need another fruit tree? Oh my goodness. I know we have we have fruit all the time. Yeah, and I planted to take tomato there. Perfect. And it's gonna be my winter tomato spot because it gets a lot of sun, yeah, and it doesn't get blocked. And I'm like, it was just gonna be temporary, you know, like this year we'll think of something and plant later. And I'm like, this is one spot in our property because I live on the I live on a hill and it's on the north side of the hill. Uh so I I get a lot of shade too. Yeah, I just might keep this one place where I have a fruit tree that's been and it might be my tomato spot for the winter. We'll see. We'll see.

SPEAKER_00 41:23

Yeah, but well, we're always trying new things, you know. Um, did you plant short day onions this year?

SPEAKER_01 41:30

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:31

Yeah, have you harvested your? Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:33

Yeah, we've been eating onions, it's wonderful.

SPEAKER_00 41:35

So mine are just now ready to harvest. And and the way, if folks don't know, when you live in our latitude, you want to plant short day onions. We do it from starts that we order, um, and and we plant them in January when they're just they look like little tiny skinny green onions, and and we order them and plant them, and then by this time of year, for for Katrina last month, but for me, uh mine are just ready to harvest. And the way that you know that's time to harvest is the tops of the onions actually, the green part just falls over, and so that tells you your onions ready to harvest. And and then, of course, when you look at it, it's the little ball, you know, it's the the round onion ball. So when you harvest them, then I put them in a just one of the nursery flats, and I just lay them out on several nursery flats, and I have a a counter outside, and I just leave them there, you know, to to age for a a day or two before I cut the tops off and then store them in the dark in the garage or in my pantry.

SPEAKER_01 42:40

You know, one of my favorite things to do with those tina is I I let them out similar to you, I put them out on my deck and let them dry out. But if I have a lot of them, I braid them. Oh, how pretty. And it's just it, it's been I found it's one of the best ways that I could keep them the longest.

SPEAKER_02 42:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:59

And I braid them and then I hang them up in the kitchen. Oh cool. It's really you gotta try. It's just it's like a French braid with, you know, how you get French braid your hair. Right. And you just braid them together, and then you tie a string around it, and I hang it up. And then as I need an onion in my kitchen, I just go over and snip an onion. Oh my gosh, how fun! So it is, it's super fun, and it looks beautiful. Yeah, it's like where did you get that farmhouse kitchen? Yeah, like where'd you get that? Like, I made that, it looks so cool. And it's like, I'm I'm not the creative one, so it's really easy. It's something really easy to do to braid these onions together. And the more you you can just keep adding onions to the braid, and you I end up with about a three foot string of onions.

SPEAKER_00 43:42

You know, I've seen garlic done like that, you know, where you can actually buy them braided, but I've never seen onions done like that. How fun!

SPEAKER_01 43:50

And you just snip one off, so yeah, it's wow, and it seems for me because it there's more air around it, sure, that it seems to last longer because we we grow a Lot and we kind of we push our limits on everything.

SPEAKER_00 44:03

Yeah, I know because I've had years where you know I haven't been paying attention to the onions that are in the garage in a cardboard box and they end up you know getting moldy or getting aphids or whatever growing in them. So I'm sure with the good air circulation that's much, much better. Yeah. Well, good, good advice. Um, what else to do in the garden? Uh so what do you plant what do you have planted right now? Oh gosh, I have you know all the warm season stuff, you know, tomatoes, green beans, um, the onions are finishing up and um peppers. I did lots of peppers this year uh because we just we just like them. We like I planted red ones, we like eating them, you know, raw. I like making stuffed peppers. I did a few hot peppers, not the super hot ones, jalapeno is as hot as I go. Um but I did the long, what are those, Anaheim, the long ones? Um yeah, and then I just uh I discovered roasting, which is silly that I it took me until just a couple years ago to discover roasting peppers. Um, but I discovered because I have a little indoor grill on my stove, and so I discovered that if I just turn on the grill, you know, and spray it with you know cooking spray and just lay the peppers on it and roast them, they're wonderful. They're wonderful. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 45:27

We barbecue them. That's another way of doing we barbecue a lot of peppers, it's just lovely.

SPEAKER_00 45:33

So this year I decided I'm gonna plant lots of peppers because I like them even more when we roast them. So yeah. So doing doing that, um, and then of course I do carrots, you know, all year round because the grandkids love love to pull carrots and zucchini. Uh so yeah, but just and then I have a whole bed of strawberries uh because we love the strawberries. Um, and so speaking of strawberries, what you need to do with those this month is they'll probably start sending out uh runners. And you want to strawberries are a perennial and they'll last for me. I think mine are on my fourth year, but reliably they last three seasons. But you have to cut the runners off because if you don't cut the runners off, then it it takes all of the energy away from the mother plant. And the other thing, other reason you cut the runners off is it will uh prolong your strawberry production because it'll put the energy into blossoms and not runners. So that's one of the things you want to do this month with your strawberries is as soon as you see a runner, cut it off. And then the other thing is if you haven't mulched your strawberries with straw and you're not growing them on black plastic like the commercial growers do, you definitely want to mulch with straw. I've gotten such better results, way fewer pests, way less holes in my strawberries since I've been mulching with straw. So I really recommend doing that. But if you're still having some damage, uh you can lay down before you put the straw down, you can uh use a snail bait um that um also contains spinocad. Um and ah, drawing a blank on what's the snail bait's name of spinocad. Um but that when you use that snail bait, it actually will um get rid of the the roly-pulley, you know, sow bugs and um some of the other bugs that will come in and try and and damage your um Sluggo Plus. That's what it is. I was having a brain freeze.

SPEAKER_01 47:45

I was like, what is she talking about?

SPEAKER_00 47:46

Sluggo plus. Sluggo plus. So Sluggo, um, and we we don't generally recommend um particular brands, um, but the this is a a problem area that um I've had and and this is the one thing that I have found because it's both snail bait and spinocad, um, it it takes care of those problems. Now, alternatively, you could just use spino sad, you know, separately, and then uh sluggo is a an iron-based um uh snail bait, so you could use a another another brand, iron-based snail bait, and and put those two things down separately and it it would it would do the same thing. But just the snail bait only does slugs and snails. And if you have uh a lot of problems with the uh the pill bugs, you're gonna need to use uh the spinocad, or you can also try diatomaceous earth. Um but the trouble with the diatomaceous earth is once it gets wet, it's not effective anymore. Uh so anyway, just giving you what I've learned from experience because I get so angry when I go out there and you know, over half of the strawberries, somebody else has eaten them, not me.

SPEAKER_01 49:00

Not fair. You know, this might be a good time to mention our website. Sure. Yeah, we have wonderful information on our website because we just threw a bunch of stuff out at you. And right now, when there's a problem, you're gonna say, what did they say to do?

SPEAKER_00 49:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:18

And so you can go to Master Gardener, you can go to the website and go to Master Gardener, Orange County, California. Make sure you say Orange County, California, because I believe there's six Master Gardener Orange Counties in the United States. So you want to get information about the right Orange County and how we grow our produce here. And then there's something called a hotline on there. And if you have questions, you can ask the the wonderful wonderful group of people that will answer your questions. It's via email. It's via email. So you can email them, send a picture of what you have. If you don't know what you have, I have this bug, I have this white thing, I have this whatever. Take a picture of it and you could put it on there, and they're really, really it's a very nice and very helpful group of people that could help you through your problem. Because when you when you have something, it might take a while to figure out what it is, but they could help you out pretty quickly. And then we also have an IPM site.

SPEAKER_00 50:17

Yes, just put in UC, that's the abbreviation for University of California, UC IPM, and that will take you to this website that has an infinite amount of resources about um virtually every pest and disease you can think of, and it's categorized by type of plant. So if you have a rose problem, you click on rose and then it will give you all the information for roses. If it's, you know, squash, you know, you click on squash and it will give you all that information. So uh amazing website. Amazing.

SPEAKER_01 50:52

We should mention it more often because it really is truly amazing. Because you could go in there and you're like, you might not know what the heck you have and how do you diagnose and how do you know what to put on it. And you can either between the IPM and the Master Gardener website, you could find out that information relatively quickly. Now, the Master Gardener website takes a little while. You know, you have to send it in, and there's people that volunteer to man the website, so you might not get your answer quite as fast as if you went to IPM and just looked it up. So there's two different paths to go on. But I find when we have pest or issues in our garden, the quicker we take care of it, the quicker it is. It gets it's it's so much easier to get rid of. And and my eyes kind of glaze over like, what the heck do I have? And when you have resources like that, it really helps get figure out what's how to take care of it.

SPEAKER_00 51:47

And and for instance, I mentioned um two pest control, you know, things, uh, which are the iron-based snail baits and the spinocad uh to use under the mulch for your um strawberries. And if you go on the IPM website and you want to learn more about spinocad, you know, you just go on there and you type it in and it will tell you, you know, how it works, where you can use it. And one of the things I should mention about it is that it is toxic to bees. So you do that's one of the reasons why I'd like to put it under the mulch is so that the bees are not directly exposed to it. Um, so yeah, please use those resources and make your life easier. Yeah. And then we should probably uh we're running out of time, so we should probably just quickly mention um turf. That's exactly where I was going. Great minds think alike. Um, so June is uh when our cool season lawns may begin to stress out a little bit uh because they don't like the warm weather. So be sure you or your gardener raise the height of your mower. If you have a cool season lawn, which is what fet what we have, the marathon fescues that a lot of us have, those are cool season lawns. But if you have a warm season lawn, um uh like uh Augustine grass, then you want to lower your mower height. And if you need to plant new, although we're trying not to plant too much turf these days, but if you need to plant new, now's the time that you plant warm season lawns because they like the warm weather.

SPEAKER_01 53:23

Now, Tina, could you tell us why we want to raise our mower length?

SPEAKER_00 53:28

Yes. Uh we want to do that because the cool season lawn uh gets stressed by heat. And so if you let it be taller, then it shades its own roots and doesn't get as stressed out as it would if you were cutting it shorter.

SPEAKER_01 53:45

Yeah, it's real simple. Gardeners can do it, you can do it if you mow your own lawn, just raise it up and it really made a huge difference when I learned that. Yeah, it's something simple to do. Also start watching your um settings on your sprinklers if you start in warmer inlands. Absolutely. You might need a little bit more water, so go adjust, you know, check out your your yard and see if it's starting time to adjust your sprinkler system. For sure.

SPEAKER_00 54:11

And then speaking of watering, be sure you do water any natives that you planted this year, that they will eventually become drought resistant. But if you just planted them this year, uh they are not drought tolerant yet. They're just babies, so be sure you do water those over the summer and then don't plant any more until next fall because a lot of natives go dormant in the summer anyway, so they're not going to be actively growing. So it's best to just keep the new ones watered and then wait till the fall to plant any additional ones.

SPEAKER_01 54:44

Yeah, I think we didn't talk about this, but last but not least, people are entertaining, and you are the one of the best at this about going out and simple things you could do real quickly if you're getting ready for uh Father's Day or 4th of July.

SPEAKER_00 55:01

Yeah, just just uh quickly fill in any holes you have in your flower beds just with some quick pops of color. But my favorite trick is in my pots. If I'm having a party and my pots aren't looking real great, I just go buy at a big box retailer one of those big already pre-planted, either hanging baskets or you know, pre-planted pots, and I just drop them into my own pot, and then I have this beautiful entryway with you know beautiful blooming, full bloom flowers, and everybody thinks I did a great job. And in reality, I just spent, you know, 25 bucks and dropped it in.

SPEAKER_01 55:43

It really something simple like that can make a huge difference, and we have busy lives and things get busy, and it doesn't take you don't have to be real creative, you know. So I love that hit. You know, I've used that a lot. I tell a lot of people to do that. It's really simple to do, and you're like, oh my gosh, I'm having company over.

SPEAKER_00 56:00

Boom, boom, yeah. So anyway, we've about run out of time. So thank you so much for listening. Happy June. Hope you have a great Father's Day celebration, and we'll be back here in July to get you ready for 4th of July. Or maybe the show won't air before 4th of July. So take our hints and get ready for 4th of July. Because we we uh we never know exactly when our when our show is gonna play. All righty, have a great month. Happy gardening.