Most gardeners aim for a good display of flowers for as many months as possible, and now that spring bedding is past its best, it's time to set out the summer-flowering plants and containers for the patio. Think a little further ahead to provide color for the fall and winter as well.

Replace spring plants with summer bedding. In most areas spring-bedding plants will have passed their best. The weather should be warm enough to plant out summer bedding to replace them, but make sure the plants have been hardened off sufficiently.

Fork over the soil, removing weeds along with the old plants, and work a sprinkling of general fertilizer into the surface. Turn the new plants out of their flats and disentangle the roots: bedding plants grown in individual cells establish more quickly because the amount of root damage is reduced. Plant with a trowel, firming in well, and water in the plants as each section of the bed is completed.

Plan Ahead. Dahlias provide wonderfully colorful blooms in late summer and early fall, and now is the time to plant the overwintered tubers, or cuttings rooted from them earlier in the spring. Cuttings should be hardened off properly before planting.

Hydrangeas are blooming!
We have Annabelle, Endless Summer,
Limelight and Oak Leaf varieties available!.

Caterpillars, loopers, and worms, especially green loopers, tomato hornworms, and cabbage worms, are hated by many gardeners. If necessary, control them with Garlic Pharm. However, butterflies, with the possible exception of the white cabbage butterflies, are the floating flowers of the garden. So why kill them all? In fact, why not encourage them? Gardeners who plant meadows filled with wildflowers often provide perfect habitats and never notice the depredations of the attendant caterpillars, a very important stage in the butterfly life cycle.

If you like Swallowtail butterflies, grow parsley and sweet fennel (Foeniculum vulgare), plenty of it, for both you and them. The caterpillars are attractively striped and not overly voracious. They do, however, like willow trees, poplars, and sycamores. If you grown these trees you're likely to have a resident population already.

Monarch butterflies can be attracted by growing butterfly weed (Asclepius tuberosa). Large-flowered passion vine will attract Gulf fritillary, a red-orange butterfly with black-to-brown markings and silver spots under the wings. The fuzzy black caterpillars will decimate leaves of passion vine, but not touch much else in the garden. The mourning cloak butterfly is attracted to newly mown lawns, and is often fearless enough to sit on a gardener's moist outstretched palm. Consider adding a butterfly-attracting specimen or two to enhance your garden and attract these beautiful additions to your landscape.

Garlic Pharm:
Repels garden insects and small mammals.

Oil Pharm:
Controls powdery mildew, scale, mites, aphids and more.

Position at McAdam: Seasonal, part-time Garden Center sales

Hobbies: Outdoor activities

Favorite Food: Salad, frozen grapes

Favorite Plant/Flower: Peonies and lily-of-the-valley

Favorite Garden Center Product: Dramm Rain Wand

Peggy's message to you, "Happy Planting!"