June, 2009
In This Issue:
Where to Find Mark this Month
Mark's Choice Product of the Month
Home Hardware $50,000 Backyard Makeover Contest
Win a Day with Mark - Contest
Mark Cullen Approved Garden Centres
Lawn Care Guide - How Often Should I Fertilize?
Canadian Vegetable Gardening - New Book from Douglas Green
Through the Garden Gate: Beyond the Bridle Path
Richmond Hill Open Gates Garden Tour
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Much ado about Mulch!
Note: in this months’ newsletter look for the Father’s Day Gift Suggestions throughout, marked with ‘FDGS’!
June is the month of mulch.
You will get most of your plants – annuals, perennials, roses and others – into the ground sooner or later this month and when you are done, you can sit back in the hammock and enjoy.
Well, almost.
The Gardeners Secret Weapon.
The last remaining thing for you to do before you settle in for a comfortable summer in your garden is to mulch. This is the gardeners’ secret weapon – and the main reason why you CAN sit back and relax all summer. Here is why:
1. A 5 cm (2 inch) layer of finely ground up cedar or pine bark mulch insulates the soil from the drying effects of the sun and wind. You will reduce your watering by up to 70% as a result.
2. The same mulch provides a barrier to the germination of weed seeds and many weed roots – the result – an 80 to 90% reduction in weeding in the first year. See how easy that was?
Bark mulch is inexpensive (wasn’t that long ago that it was considered a waste product…), easy to apply, smells good, looks good and lasts for up to 3 years (with an annual freshen up layer added). Need I say more?
Celebrate mulch and shake your booty all the way to Home Hardware for a few bags.
June is the month of Peonies and Roses.
When the peonies and roses bloom, which occurs at about the same time, their colourful ‘in your face’ message brings to mind that these are plants worth having. After they spend the spring growing green stuff and the winter in deep hibernation, this is their first chance to redeem themselves.
So it is important that you let them have their say. In other words, let them bloom their heads off and when they are done blooming be sure to remove the spent blossoms. This is called ‘deadheading’ and has nothing to do with medieval torture. Roses will thank you by reblooming in late August and early September, which is their second chance at redemption and your peonies will not thank you but will just look good, cleaned up for a summer of green leaves that fill in your garden nicely and compliment everything that is in bloom.
Cut Flowers.
Be sure to cut some of the flowers when they are ramping up to their peak of colour and bring them indoors to enjoy on the kitchen table. For most of us, they are more appreciated there than in the garden.
Use a deep vase and cut a nice long stem when cutting roses and peonies. Use room temperature water and change it every other day to keep it fresh. When the blooms are done, toss them into the compost.
Fertilize.
Add a handful of CIL Rose and flower fertilizer 6-12-6 to each rose plant and peony bush this month, again in July but not beyond August. Better still, apply CIL Once and Done timed release fertilizer to each plant now and forget about it for the rest of the season.
Organic gardeners will be pleased with the results of Green Earth Rose, Annual and Perennial food 4-8-4. Apply once in June and again in July. Peonies enjoy a 2 cm (one inch) layer of finished compost over their root zone this time of year.
Buy and plant roses – which are container grown this time of year – a great Father’s Day gift suggestion (FDGS).
June is also a great month to:
 Trim the cedar hedge and other evergreens, before the first big flush of late spring/early summer growth surges forth. This will thicken mature plants and enhance the appearance of young ones. Look for the Mark’s Choice hedge trimming shears at Home Hardware. Made in Dartmouth Nova Scotia. (FDGS!)
‘Pinch’ the candles of mugho pine and other conifers by squeezing the new growth between your thumb and forefinger. This will thicken the plant up significantly and is not a job that can wait past the ‘candle’ phase.
Prune shrubs that have bloomed already this spring: forsythia, purple sand cherry, lilacs etc. lend themselves to late spring pruning. Use a good, clean, sharp pair of hand pruners. Look for the selection of Mark’s Choice hand pruners at Home Hardware that are made by Corona. (Father’s Day gift suggestion!)
Set up rain barrels to take advantage of the free use of oxygen charged, warm rain. ALL plants love it and respond better to it than the cold water from the end of a hose. Guaranteed. Check out the top of the line Mark’s Choice rain barrel at Home Hardware. Large capacity/made in Canada. (FDGS!)
Plant. Today you can plant anything that you want right into the early summer, given that virtually all plants available at retail today are grown in containers and quite capable of putting down new roots over the balance of the growing season. For the month of June, container grown annuals and perennials should be considered for containers that remain empty. (FDGS)
Benmore Gardens, Scotland
On a personal note, I am looking forward to the month of June for a whole bunch of reasons.
For one, I am looking forward to reports from the great Botanical garden in Argyll, Scotland where our daughter Heather is volunteering for work in the garden. Already she has e mailed (a parent’s dream come true where ‘travelling kids’ are concerned!) us some great news about her experiences there. Go to www.rbge.org.uk/the-gardens/benmore for info.
I Travel west and east in June to award winners with Home Hardware!
I am traveling toLloydminster, Alberta for the grand opening of one of the first ‘Mark Cullen Approved’ garden centres at Home Hardware. The Rurka family is one of the great, outstanding retailing families in Canada (note all the awards that they have won!) and I am delighted to welcome them into the first year of the Mark Cullen Approved garden centre program.
Be sure to join me and the Rurka family on Tuesday, June 16 th. Details at www.hhlloyd.com.
Down east, I will appear at the great Handyman Home Hardware in Conception Bay South in Newfoundland where another award winning dealer, Christine Hand, is being awarded the banner “Mark Cullen Approved’ for her excellent garden centre. Celebrations throughout the day and weekend. A surprise guest will be on hand, we expect, non other that Mrs. O’Regan, Mom to Seamus O’Regan of Canada AM fame. It is going to be a hoot! Please join us on Saturday, June 27th. Details at Handyman Home Hardware: 130 Conception Bay Highway, Suite 201, Conception Bay South, Newfoundland. (709) 834-8621.
I hope that you enjoy a great gardening month in June.
Here I am in the Halifax Public Garden in late May. The finest of it's kind in the country!
Be sure to sign up at www.livingwell.ca for a chance to win a day touring the great gardens of Toronto with me – yes me! - and a wonderful dinner at our home featuring the fine food prepared from our garden by none other than my wife Mary. I hope that you like fresh eggs cause we have lots of them!
The ‘second’ prizes are 50 copies of my new book The CanadianGarden Primer,An Organic Approach, which is selling off the shelves across the country and has been critically acclaimed in every major Canadian city. You can get your copy at Home Hardware, Chapters, Indigo or independent book sellers everywhere. Go to www.markcullen.com/news_events/news_releases/GardenPrimer_Jan09.htm (FDGS).
You still have time to enter the Home Hardware $50,000 Backyard Makeover Contest. Enter on-line at www.homehardware.ca or www.canadaam/ctv.ca.
Talk soon – please keep in touch through my weekly blog on Yahoo! at http://ca.lifestyle.yahoo.com.
Keep your knees dirty,
Mark
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