The Well-Tended Perennial Garden The Essential Guide to Planting and Pruning Techniques, Third Edition

PlantinG

w Try to finish all planting by mid-June, if possible.

w Transplanting and dividing can continue, but plants will need to be cut

back and possibly shaded.

w Old-fashioned bleeding heart (Lamprocapnos spectabilis) can be trans-

planted now.

General Maintenance

w Be certain to keep new plantings well watered.

w Weed.

w Linking staking and single stakes should be placed in June.

w Prop up any stray branches off neighboring plants, if needed.

w Watch for fourlined plant bug adults.

w Japanese beetles are the problem for the month.

w Baby grasshoppers are evident; apply garlic sprays now.

PruninG

w Continue to cut back spring-flowering plants, especially any that may be

flopping, such as Veronica austriaca subsp. teucrium and its cultivars.

w Autumn-flowering plants should be pinched or cut back for height

control as well as thinned and shaped.

w Numerous summer-flowering plants, including echinacea, heliopsis,

phlox, platycodon, and veronica, among others, can be cut back to

Dense plantings of reseeding
perennials such as this
black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia
fulgida var. speciosa) help
reduce weeds and create
harmony.