July, 2009
In This Issue:
Mark's Choice Product of the Month
Home Renovation Tax Credit
Harvest Ontario
Guerilla Gardeners
East Coast Eco Parent Website
Aurora Garden Tour
Feast of Fields
Canada Blooms 2010
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July? What? July already?
Where has this month gone? It might have had something to do with my travel across the country – from Vancouver/Okanogan/Lloydminster …… all the way to St. John’s Newfoundland. Wow – what a great country!!
My Home Hardware relationship – and the publicity of my new book – has taken me to great places in Canada this spring. So many, in fact, that my wife Mary decided that the only way she was going to get to see me for any length of time at all was to travel with me…and so she did. Mary, son Ben and youngest daughter Emma all came with me for a 4 day extended vacation/business trip to Newfoundland just last week. It was wonderful!!! The people of NFLD/Labrador are everything that you have heard. Friendly. Accommodating. Thoughtful. Generous.
The visit began with a full day tour of the greater St. John’s area hosted by none other than Judge Seamus O’Regan, the famous Seamus of Canada AM fame. (Thank you Seamus JR for the recommendation that I contact your folks! And your Mom Janet did a fabulous job of co-hosting the grand opening of the first Mark Cullen Approved Garden Centre in Newfoundland in Conception Bay South.)
Whales. Icebergs. Fish. Chowder. Lobsters. It was perfect.
And to top it all off, everything blooms in St. John’s at once…. I mean EVERYTHING. I saw tulips (albeit late ones), day lilies, laburnum, rhododendrons, azaleas, phlox and peonies in bloom on the same day. They really do get it all at once!
We will go back… many times, I predict!
As for your garden – if you are not traveling this month too much, keep in mind that this is the first month that you can relax to a point –you have earned it. You prepped the soil, planted, pampered and poured on all of the good stuff (compost tea?) to make the garden of your dreams and now you have earned the right to sit in the hammock and dream some more.
But while you are there, keep in mind the following:
 This is the month to get the weeds under control. For every weed that you cut down ‘with a sharp hoe’ as Jeff Hucheson likes to say, there will be one large weed that you will not have to fight with later in the season.
Mulch. Reduce your weed problems by up to 95% by spreading a 5 cm. layer of finely ground up bark mulch over the entire garden – at least, around your perennials, shrubs and roses.
Reduce watering. Use a rain barrel. Apply water at night or first thing in the morning. Apply water using one of my new Mark’s Choice Soaker hoses (Buyer's Guide) and remember that the Mark’s Choice ‘heart breaker’ sprinkler uses 30% less water than your old oscillating sprinkler. AND Mark’s Choice hose is ‘kink resistant’, though, you could tell it dirty stories and it would keep a secret (bad joke).
Plant. O.k. I said for you to sit and swing in the hammock a little. Well, if you are inclined to want to plant, this is a good month to do it. The selection at the retailers is still pretty good (best early in the month) and all the plants that you buy now are containerized, so they put down roots without shock. Not a bad deal in the heat of summer.
Cut and enjoy. You planted a lot of great looking flowers that are going to look their best this month – roses, oriental lilies, summer flowering spirea and more… be sure to cut lots of them and bring them indoors where you will enjoy them and their fragrance up close and personal.
Fertilize your lawn with Golfgreen. If you have not done this since spring now is the perfect time to perk your lawn up to strengthen it for the long hot summer. Note: if your lawn is going dormant already, best to leave the fertilizing of it until it comes out of dormancy when the rain falls again. Prairie gardeners: our thoughts and prayers are with you. Let’s hope that you get regular rain fall this month!!
Be sure to take part in the garden tours that are out there.
Enjoy the month and we will talk a month from now.
Mark
p.s. thank you so much for participating in the www.livingwell.ca website contest for a day with me touring the great gardens of Toronto.
AND thank you for entering the Home Hardware/CTV $50,000 Backyard Giveaway! You exceeded our expectations on both fronts – I hope that we exceed yours!
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