After a few months of getting other stuff cleaned up a bit and getting more of the tornado damage repaired, I needed some creative time this weekend in the June Garden. Tom and I walk through an acre of downed trees with a giant chain saw. We pulled out big curvy limbs to make a giant rose trellis and freaky stumps to make three legged and stools. Im all into spiffy garden furniture from Smith and Hawkins but you gotta balance it with a little funk.

My buddy Felder Rushing stopped by to check it out and give me a cool perennial Lychnis coranata (Chinese Orange Pink) an old pass-along plant. If your friends dont just happen to have a bunch of plants in the back of their trucks and you have to buy it, go to www.plantdelights.com.

What’s the work now for the June Garden?

Where I have little holes in my lawn from winter weeds or dog damage, I scattered handfuls of high nitrogen fertilizer, just to speed up the repair process.

Now’s a great time to plant that late crop of eggplant, cucumbers and okra. Go ahead; mix them in with your flowers!

Shear roses. You can do this by hand (aka deadheading) or if you have masses of antique roses, just give them a light haircut with the electric shears. Youll remove all the flowers, but most are looking bad now anyway. In a few weeks you’ll have a great display again.

Cut back helianthus, eupatorium greggiii, Artemesia ludovicana.

You can still cut back late flowering, floppy perennials to keep them compact when they do flower.

Deadhead Crinums, Daylilies and Lilys and anything else with big flowers that tend to hang on the stalk and look mushy. With crinums you can cut the entire stalk as it finished flowering, but with daylilies wait a while and let the stalk dry a bit.

Looking good now

Achillea is one of the most dependable of our perennials and one that requires little maintenance except deadheading. Its soft feathery foliage and flat umbel flowers in a soft rose color spreads happily in full sun and well-drained soiled. (It abhors heavy, wet soils.) It often grows tall and then falls over. What do you do with this floppy old-lady plant? I rejoice in its graceful slump and dont try to stake it. Just let if cascade as in the picture.

Caryopteris divaricata Snow Fairy Most plants of the genus Caryopteris are woody shrubs or subshrubs, but this hardy perennial acts like both. It can grow to 4 ft X 4ft at maturity, and makes a great accent in a long border. This significant Japanese selection of the Himalayan Caryopteris is sometimes is more white than green The leaves are scorch resistant and the plant is drought tolerant. But no Caryopteris is ever gonna do in the South what you see in Wayside catalogs. Those beautiful pictures are from Longwood Gardens (thats up in NJ or somewhere else cold). But this one really thrives here and is particularly graceful with hydrangeas. We grew it on the farm as a perennial for 6 years, til some tractor ran over it again and again!

More June Flowers

Crinum Parfait is really one of my favorites. I know youve heard that before, but this beauty is incredible with flowers that are dark pink on the outside, light pink on the inside with a dark pink stripe down each petal. Ive seen stalks to 5 tall, with 15 or so flowers each, and the fragrance is wonderful. Sitting by a little fire Sat night, the crew kept smelling sugary sweet wisps mixed in the smoke. I sniffed it out to find this plant, releasing her nocturnal perfume from more than 20 yards away.

Echinacea Kims Knee High (Purple Cone Flower) This one is tough as nails and absolutely tore up when mixed with pink and orange gladiolas! It really does reach only 20 tall. My colleague, Ethan Kauffman, says The overall form is of a compact, rounded plant with several dozen vibrant pinkish magenta flowers jockeying for bloom space. The smaller stature makes this Echinacea very versatile. Tolerant of drought, heat, humidity and poor soils this truly is an adaptable plant. Cut back the stems after flowering to promote mid-august blooming that may continue into fall.

Leucanthemum superbum (Shasta Daisy). The masses of white flowers look really good now on this short-lived perennial. In full sun to partial shade, this familiar favorite with the large white-petal blooms and bright yellow centers looks good in large or small borders or in groups. You might get blooms in early, mid and late summer and into the fall. It likes to seed itself in vigorously, so if you dont want seedlings the next year be sure to deadhead. But I like this one, and to beef up the ever-changing colony, I often buy some seed in the fall and scatter them on a rainy day.