Garden Tasks for JUNE in Acadiana: By Dan Weintritt and friends

Created for use by the Louisiana Native Plant Society with the Acadiana Native Plant Project.

Made in the style of Dan Gill's Month by Month Gardening in Louisiana, Cool Springs Press,

JUNE - To Do

It is time to stop planting containerized plants and make a plan to over-

summer stragglers or late acquisitions for fall planting.. Move container plants

into larger pots, and place containers in more shade, if you haven't already.

Deal with unwanted invasive plants quickly, before they set seed and spread

through the garden! When lifting weeds, try to ensure that you do not shake

their seeds back into the garden. Having a bucket or grocery bag handy really

helps with this.

Many tall rosette plants, like some of the Rudbeckias, Gaura, and

Rattlesnake Master, may be starting to flop. If you did not or do not want to

stake or cage the plants, cutting the flowering stems in half will make them

stouter, prettier, and may encourage more blooms for summer. If Texas Star

Hibiscus stems were not pinched in Spring, and are sparse with few blooms,

consider cutting in half now. Losing the few flowerbuds you have now is a

small sacrifice for the abundance to follow, as the plant has months of bloom

left.

Tall fall-blooming perennials such as Ironweed, Goldenrod, and Joe-Pye

Weed can be pinched by a third now to create plants that are stockier and less

floppy in fall. Pinching now allows Tall Ironweed to grow back to about a six-

foot plant by its bloom time in the fall. Pinching in July will result in a plant

about 4-5' tall when it blooms.

Continue to deadhead and look for ripening seedpods on milkweeds, asters,

coneflowers, rudbeckias, gaillairdias, Verbenas, Basketflower, and others.

Light deadheading can elongate flowering times. Removing seed from

flowering bulb plants will especially help them to store more of their energy

and return even better next year.

Summer blooming annuals can continue to be directly sown into beds.

Planting a few sunflower seeds each month will ensure continued blooms

through fall.

If recent transplants continue to wilt and struggle, consider that hand-

watering may not be enough. Think about installing a soaker hose on a timer

where needed to avoid mortality from summer heat. This may be especially

needed for large plants like trees and shrubs, whose broad root systems are

too much to water with just a hose. Magnolias are especially sensitive to

summer droughts.

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