By Susan McCausland

Redstone Review

BOULDER – It has been a busy two weeks in the gardens. Bulbs have finished up and the spent foliage is starting to fade. Try to resist the urge to chop down the yellowing or ratty foliage as it is still supplying nutrients to the bulb for next season’s display. As a compromise you can cut daffodil foliage in half by the handful and take the tulip stalk down to above the next leaf segment. If you have not already removed all the spent flowers then do it now so the remaining energy the bulb needs will go to the bulb and not to producing a seed that will not take root in our climate. Ignore this advice when it comes to ornamental onions or alliums as some do reseed and the spent flowers make an interesting specimen in the garden for months.

Grape hyacinths make a great lawn replacement but can take over a flower bed. We tear the spent flowers down and often tear foliage and bulbs out along with the spent flowers to thin out the hyacinths in perennial flower beds. These bulbs can be transplanted or as we have discovered simply thrown on the ground where they will often root themselves and develop a new area.

What a great lilac season we had this year, but lilacs are starting to finish flowering for the season. Now is the time to thin out a third of the old growth as close to the ground as possible so new healthy shoots can emerge.  A tip for using the loppers is to make sure they are sharp and to press one handle into your leg or hip and pull the other handle towards you when cutting a branch. After you have removed a third of the old growth and perhaps a branch or two hanging into a walkway, then remove the spent flowers. Removing spent flowers helps for a better display next year and makes for a more sightly appearance the rest of the season. No other shrubs need to be deadheaded like lilacs so leave other flowering shrubs alone.

Beautybush, known as Kolkwitzia amabilis, is seldom seen in gardens but it’s a great shrub if you have the space. Beautybush has profuse salmon pink flowers on arching branches and emits a slight delicate fragrance. Great for sun or part shade, it will fill up a neglected corner and is great for screening. Beautybush has to be give proper space grows to eight by eight feet and does not lend itself to hedge pruning.  This is an excellent xeric shrub that is seldom used but always seems to thrive.

The mock orange known as Philadelphus Minnesota Snowflake also reaches eight feet high by eight feet wide at maturity. There are smaller varieties of this amazing fragrant shrub. The delicate bell-shaped white flowers adorn arching branches and emit a sweet citrus fragrance. There are many varieties of mock orange that come in all different sizes and even in lime-colored foliage. These shrubs can handle full sun or part shade. They’re a little slow to get established the first season but generally really start to take off the second year in the garden, and look great in combination with the beautybush.

At this point the branches that never fully leafed out on your trees and shrubs can be removed. It was a hard spring that caused some branches to give up trying to leaf out. Always try to cut a dead branch back to the base of the shrub or to a joint with another branch or the trunk on a tree. Cutting branches halfway down even if there is new growth will cause the branch to sprout several new branches from that point creating a top heavy look. This is common with shrubs that are continually hedge-trimmed as they sprout too much top growth that shades the base to the point of dieback and a gradual death. This can be easily seen in many shopping malls.

Moving toward Father’s Day, my father has really gotten into gardening the past few years.  Gardening seems to be a retirement hobby of choice. Here are some gift ideas:

AM Leonard’s soil knife. This is a great gardening tool. I tried to use a few less expensive knockoffs this season with the crew but the pronged tip caught on to many roots, the metal blade became loose in the wooden hilt or the metal bent backwards with use.

Square shovels aren’t as common but are great especially for cutting through tough soil or roots. More expensive but well worth it are the all-metal single construction shovels that will not break at the junction of the handle and shovel. Some can be sharpened.

Make a trellis out of plumbing metal pipes that can be screwed together with couplers and joints to make any size and shape; they’re handy and strong and great for peas and cucumbers all climbing vines.

Triangle folding tomato cages are hard to find and for good reason. Much less apt to bend and buckle and easy to store as they fold flat.

Companion planting vegetable garden book. I sent my father a link to a website. I didn’t hear anything for two weeks then he sent me a chart so . . . good geek out time for Dad and it helps the garden go gangbusters and eliminates pest issue, a bounty for all.

Susan McCausland grew up on a small sheep farm in rural New Hampshire. She moved to Colorado in 1989 to pursue creative writing at the University of Colorado, Boulder but discovered that she enjoyed her landscaping job more than the classroom. She has owned and operated a small garden maintenance company, Beyond Gardens, for15 years in Boulder County.

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