Hello Gardening Friends - June has arrived, summer is officially on its way, warmer temps beckon us outside, and our gardens are coming alive again. Love this time of year!
Continue to plant, fill in those bare spots, harvest those early veggies & fruits, and make time to relax & reflect in your backyard haven. There's always something to look forward to in the garden!
Please scroll down for my June gardening "to do's", helpful advice, recommended garden gifts of the month, and more. Plus, discover what's new and blooming at your Zone 5 / 6 resource FlowerChick.com for more inspiration for your gardens ...
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Table of Contents - June Newsletter |
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Garden Gifts of the Month |
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Latest Flower Chick Posts |
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June Garden "To Do's" |
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Flower Spotlight & Trivia |
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In his garden, every man may be his own artist without apology or explanation. |
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~ Louise Beebe Wilder
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Garden Gifts for the Month of June: Flower Power |
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This month's focus is flowers! What do gardeners crave besides plants? Well naturally, more ways to display their beloved plants and flowers.
The attractive and useful gifts below will be a welcome addition to anyone's deck, patio, porch or sunroom ...
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#1 June Garden Gift of the Month
This versatile plant stand has a galvanized steel tray with attractive coir rope handle that is ideal for keeping plants contained indoors or outdoors.
The wrought iron base is designed to butt against a wall, with the tray fitting snugly over it. The tray’s tall sides prevent plants from sliding off and contain soil and water mess.
A stylish way to hold potted plants and flowers for a porch, or balcony, or inside as a houseplant stand. Come to think of it ... this would make the perfect perch for those houseplants you bring outside in the summer months.
These versatile stands are sturdy, functional, yet portable. Gift this pretty and useful garden accent to your favorite gardener!
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#2 June Garden Gift of the Month |
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VegTrug Deluxe Potting Bench |
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The VegTrug is a quality wooden potting table ideal for the home, shed, greenhouse, garage or patio. This beautifully designed potting table includes a nifty large metal insert which can hold up to 10 liters of soil (2.6 gallons) and is easy to remove for washing and cleaning.
Love that this handy potting bench includes a shelf at the back to hold your filled pots, ready for seeds or seedlings to be planted! On the left side of the table top there is a useful covered storage area to stash tools, seed packets, garden gloves and other small items.
There's also a full length bottom shelf to hold potted plants, fertilizer, and a watering can, plus hooks on the front for tools. A nicely crafted, back-saving potting bench!
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#3 June Garden Gift of the Month |
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Nantucket Planter with Self Watering System |
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This terrific planter is more than just good looking ... it's made in the USA and self-watering. Talk about a trifecta!
It features a bowed front, raised panel design, and pronounced crown molding detail creating a stand-out statement. Offered in black, brown and white finishes.
The clever self-watering system goes through a built-in water reservoir encouraging healthy plant growth by creating a sub-irrigation water system.
These classy molded plastic planters are made from high-grade 100% polyethylene with built-in UV inhibitors within the resin for long-lasting fade-free performance.
Perfect for your garden or for a gift!
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Latest Flower Chick Posts |
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Easy Perennials For Full Sun
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Do you have a spot in your yard that gets a lot of sun? Well, you need to discover sun-loving perennials that come back every year with little effort on your part.
Full sun perennials are easy to care for and come in a huge variety of colors, habits, bloom times, and sizes.
Furthermore, sun loving perennials are low maintenance, tolerant plants that can withstand a water shortage and, as the name suggests, love sunny growing conditions!
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Flowers That Attract Hummingbirds
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It’s such a treat to see hummingbirds in your garden! The best way of attracting them is to use a combination of hummingbird feeders and their favorite flowers, plants, shrubs and vines.
The plants listed in this post are among hummingbirds’ favorites. While reds dominate the list, there are plenty of other colors suggested (reds, pinks, oranges, yellows and purple shades) to allow a varied planting ... added plus, many of these flowers also attract butterflies.
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- Location, Location, Location: When planting a butterfly garden in your backyard, ensure that your location gets the right amount of sunlight for flowers to grow to attract the butterflies. At least 6 hours of full sun.
- Select Flowers That Attract Butterflies: To benefit your local butterflies, fill your garden with two types of plants: host plants and nectar plants.
- Use Organic, Homemade Bait: You can make homemade butterfly bait with a mix of rotting fruit (like bananas, peaches, plums, and apples), white sugar, or molasses.
- Add a Water Source: Fill a shallow dish with water, adding soil, sand, or pebbles to create a watery mud. You can place 'puddling stations' near the bait stations.
- Build Butterfly Shelters: By building a shelter, you can protect butterflies against predators and harsh weather conditions. These shelters don't need to be fancy - a simple wooden box with a small opening will suffice.
- Steer Clear of Toxic Pesticides: Many pesticides kill butterflies and other essential pollinators. Avoid chemical-based pesticides, even organic ones can hurt.
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June Garden "To Do" List:
- Finish Planting - annuals in containers and in
bare spots in your garden. Large greenhouses online and brick & mortar still have lots
of flowers to choose from at the beginning of the month with many discounted.
- Tackle Those Weeds - stay ahead of your weeding chores. Once temps soar, weeds & invasive plants can quickly get ahead of you. Pull them out as you see them. Use preventative measures like sprinkling Preen in your beds.
- Divide & Transplant - most
late-summer and fall-blooming perennials now. Wait to divide spring bloomers
until fall.
- Deadhead Flowers Regularly - it not only
keeps your landscape tidy-looking, dead-heading encourages certain flowers to bloom more.
- Mulch Now - with wood chips and other weed-suppressing mulches at the beginning of June. The mulch helps preserve soil moisture during the hot months and prevents weeds from taking over.
- Fertilize Containers Regularly - watering
flushes out many nutrients. For best results, use a special bloom-boosting
fertilizer on flowering plants.
- Plant Warm Weather Veggies - outdoors, including eggplant, peppers, and late potatoes. Harvest early season fruits and veggies, like strawberries, raspberries, peas, radishes, and lettuces.
- Mow High - this time of year. The longer grass will shade the soil, conserving moisture and discouraging weeds. Mow to 3 inches long for cool-season grasses such as Kentucky bluegrass.
- Fertilize Rose Bushes - after the first blooming. Also, it’s very important to remove any loose debris around your roses, like petals that may have shed, twigs, bark, or anything else. Extraneous debris usually leads to insect problems.
- Cut Back Later-Blooming Perennials - finish pinching later-blooming perennials by the end of the month, and they will still have enough time for flower-bud formation. This is a good way to control ultimate size, have less flopping, and increase bloom, but it also delays flowering slightly. (like Asters, Mums, Phlox & Upright Sedums)
- Plant For The Pollinators - include nectar rich perennials and annuals into your landscape plans. They love coneflowers, black-eyed susan, salvia, butterfly bush, milkweed, zinnias, lantana and more ...
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Did you know ... 10 Fun Facts About Marigolds
There’s a reason people have used these flowers as a garden staple for a very long time. Tolerant of heat, drought, and pests, the marigold is about as easy to care for as they come.
They take off easily from seed, either grown indoors during the winter months or sown directly into the soil when it’s warmer out.
The common Marigolds (the Tagetes family) are annuals in Zone 5 / 6. There is also a perennial marigold - the Marsh Marigold (Caltha palustris) a native plant of wet areas found along streams and bogs.
- Marigolds come in a variety of colors such as orange, red, maroon, yellow, white or even mixed.
- Ideal as a companion plant especially in the vegetable garden, the marigold often is planted as a border or buffer around a plot, since the pungent scent is so offensive to pests.
- There are a lot of health benefits that come with marigold
flowers because they contain substances with anti-viral, anti-bacterial,
anti-fungal and anti-flammatory properties.
- The bloom itself symbolizes beauty, warmth, creativity, a drive
to succeed, and celebration of the dead.
- In Mexico, marigolds are one of the main flowers used during their ‘Day of the Dead’ celebration. This is when it’s believed the spirits of the dead visit the living. Marigolds adorn special altars and it’s believed their scent and bright colors attract and guide the souls to them.
- In India, marigolds play a role in festivals and rituals. One of the special occasions they're used in is weddings. Couples getting married use garlands of vibrant marigolds to brighten up their wedding venue.
- The birth flower for the month of October is the Marigold.
- Depending on the variety, marigolds can grow between 6 to
48 inches in height and 6 to 36 inches wide.
- One variety of the flower is even fed to chickens so that egg yolks have a more perfect yellow color.
- The name Marigold has its origin in religion, like many plants do. Originally called Mary's Gold, the marigold was named after the mother of Jesus, the Virgin Mary.
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Recommended Gardening Book: |
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Perennial Combinations: Stunning Combinations That Make Your Garden Look Fantastic Right From The Start |
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Perennial Combinations features plant medleys that bring color, texture, and excitement to the garden in every season.
This inspirational book features 130 of the best perennial combinations with photographs of each grouping, along with a numbered photo key and plant list.
An excellent resource and a must for every gardener's library! You will find the best choices to accent wide open spaces, marry slopes and high foundations, make an impact on the landscape with impressive and showy plants ... and much more. Contains lots of full color photos!
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Travel To Midwestern Gardens |
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Need a little gardening inspiration? Looking for some good cheer and vicarious travel? Get inspired by the Midwest’s beautiful botanical gardens, arboretums, and other stunning natural attractions! Join us as we visit these wonderful Zone 5 & Zone 6 garden sites.
Follow along with us and plan your own trips … you’ll even find a guide of fun, local attractions (we focus on independent businesses) to enjoy in the various towns and cities. Come back often as we keep adding new posts to our Illinois Gardens , Indiana Gardens, Iowa Gardens, Michigan Gardens & Wisconsin Gardens categories.
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Visit Lovely Lilacia Park in Lombard, IL
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In this “Visiting Midwest Gardens” feature, Flower Chick spotlights the beautiful Lilacia Park in Lombard, IL.
Lilacia Park is renowned for its spectacular display of tulips and lilacs. This iconic village park showcases bursts of vibrant colors every spring season as you’ll soon see.
Plus the summer and autumn months bring a new wave of floral display to the park, a Chicagoland favorite dating back to 1927 …
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Must See Rotary Botanical Gardens
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Visiting the Rotary Botanical Gardens in Janesville, Wisconsin is a feast for the senses! It boggles the mind that this 20 acre paradise was once an abandoned sand and gravel quarry.
Take your time and walk through each interesting themed garden including English Cottage style, French Formal, Scottish, Italian, Japanese, a Children’s Garden, plus a bustling pollinator garden.
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Valparaiso's Stunning Ogden Gardens Park
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As part of our “Visiting Midwest Gardens” series, we’re pleased to spotlight Ogden Gardens Park. Spread out over four acres, this photogenic park offers a vibrant burst of color from spring through fall.
The centerpiece of the park is the Japanese Garden, which was built and installed by Valpo Parks in 2005. Adjacent is a beautiful 22,000 gallon koi pond …
Many of the plants in the park are grown at Valpo Parks own greenhouses. For practical reasons, there’s always an emphasis on native plants.
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Visit Fernwood Botanical Garden MI
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The lovely Fernwood Botanical Garden is located in Niles, Michigan, a town of about 12,000 in the southwest part of the state. Niles is very close to the Michigan – Indiana state line, just a few miles in fact.
Families visiting Fernwood can borrow backpacks with activities to do while exploring the grounds. For instance, the Birds Backpack includes binoculars, field guides, & checklists. The Gardens Backpack contains scavenger hunts, books on plants and flowers, an insect field guide, and a bug box. Clever idea to engage all ages in nature fun!
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Did You Know ...
The most common butterfly in the US is the Cabbage White. Named for its mostly white markings, with subtle hints of yellow and green (like the vegetable), the Cabbage White may not be the most colorful butterfly in your garden or yard, but it is the most common. The male Cabbage White has one prominent black spot on each wing, while the female has two.
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Dear Gardening Friends, Thanks for reading the June newsletter! Let's enjoy the warm weather, help our pollinator friends out, and grow more of our own food.
We're so looking forward to travelling again this summer! This month we are headed to Iowa and Minnesota. Flower Chick will keep you updated with fun & informative new posts and lots of photos of the botanical gardens, arboretums and other interesting horticultural sites we visit.
I can't wait to share these floral adventures with you in our Visiting Midwestern Gardens Series! Let me guide you on your gardening journey.
Take care,
~ Laura a.k.a. Flower Chick
P.S. Click on the social icons below to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, & Pinterest!
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Do you have a favorite public garden? |
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Is there a botanical garden, arboretum, or nature area you love and would like to see us feature in a future issue? Please share below ...
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