It's possible here to have color year-round from permanent plants. If your garden lacks color now, notice what's in bloom in local gardens, and visit botanical gardens and nurseries to see what's flowering. Consider adding one or two of the following plants that bloom during June.

Jacaranda with Agapanthus.

Jacaranda is a spectacular tree. Try planting white agapanthus, also in bloom now, at its feet. Or use blue agapanthus for mirror effect - blue on the tree and the ground as well.

Chinese Fringe Tree (Chionanthus retusus).

White flowers shaped rather like lilac blossoms cover the entire tree in June.

Fuchsia, Hydrangea, and Lantana

All these are at the height of bloom in June. Fuchsias need regular water but adapt well to drip systems. Hydrangeas also need plenty of water, but they make good container plants or choices for moist canyons with damp but well-drained soil. Lantana is one of the easiest full-sun, drought-resistant plants to grow and is a great bank cover.

Bottlebrush (Callistemon citrinus).

Among our finest drought-resistant small trees or shrubs, bottlebrush grows slowly to 25 feet. Named cultivars have the best color and largest flowers.

Vines

All of the following bloom in summer and can be planted now.

Orchid trumpet vine (Clytostoma callistegioides) is easy, disease resistant, and gorgeous in its late spring/early summer bloom.

Royal trumpet vine (Distictis 'Rivers') is a strong grower, disease resistant, with flowers ranging from mauve to royal purple.

Bower vine (Pandorea jasminoides) is pink (rosea) or white (alba). Protect it from wind.

Red trumpet vine (Distictis buccinatoria) does best near the sea, but can be grown in the interior, though it will suffer frost damage.

Mandevilla (Mandevilla splendens 'Alice du Pont') is bright pink and a good choice to espalier on an east wall.

Do the last thinning on deciduous fruit trees after June drop has occurred. June drop is nature's way of getting rid of an overload of fruit. It may occur any time between early May and July but is most likely to happen around the first of June. One day you visit your apple, peach, or apricot tree and find a circle of immature fruit lying on the ground under the branches. These trees often set more than double the amount of fruit they could possibly ripen properly, so they simply drop off part of it.

If you thinned out the fruit on your trees in April and again four to six weeks later, you enabled the remaining fruit to grow larger, and thus less fruit will drop off now. Nevertheless, you may need to remove even more fruit than naturally drops in order to space your crop evenly down the branches. Inspect other deciduous fruit trees that are less subject to June drop--plums, for instance--and thin out their fruits also.

Clean up the fallen fruit under the tree before it has time to rot and spread disease. If it's healthy, chop it and add it to the compost pile (cover it with earth against flies and rodents). Also water deciduous fruit trees well in June and July.

Hot peppers get their heat from capsaicin, a natural substance that produces a burning sensation in the mouth, causing the eyes to water and the nose to run, and even induce perspiration. Capsaicin has no flavor or odor, but works directly on the pain receptors in the mouth and throat. In fact, it is so hot that a single drop diluted in 100,000 drops of water will produce a blistering of the tongue.

Capsaicin is found primarily in the seeds and white ribs that run down the middle of peppers. If you remove these parts you will be able to temper the amount of heat that’s in the pepper. Capsaicin tends to be distributed unevenly throughout the flesh, so some parts of the pepper still may be hotter than others. It is recommended that you wear gloves when removing the ribs and seeds in peppers.

The Capsaicinoid content of peppers is measured in parts per million. These parts per million are converted into Scoville heat units, the industry standard for measuring a pepper's heat. One part per million is equivalent to 15 Scoville units. Bell peppers have a value of zero Scoville units, whereas habaneros, which are some of the hottest peppers, pack a blistering 200,000 to 350,000.

For comparison's sake, pure capsaicin has a Scoville heat unit score of 16 million.

Bhut Jolokia: 1,001,304 (officially)

Dorset Naga: 923,000

Red Savina Habanero: 350,000 to 577,000

Chocolate and Orange Habanero: 200,000 to 350,000

Scotch Bonnet: 100,000 to 250,000

Jamaican Hot: 100,000 to 200,000

Thai: 50,000 to 100,000

Piquin: 40,000 to 58,000

Cayenne: 30,000 to 50,000

Serrano: 10,000 to 25,000

Hungarian Wax: 5,000 to 10,000

Jalapeño: 2,500 to 8,000

Anaheim: 1,000 to 2,500

Ancho Poblano: 1,000 to 1,500

New Mexico: 500 to 1,000

Pepperoncini: -100 to 500

Bell Pepper: - 0

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We work with you to design and create a look that is unique for you and truly reflects your needs and desires. But many people make the mistake of contacting us in late spring when we are already booked up for most of the year. It takes time to design a landscape plan for your home, so we invite you to plan ahead and let us design your landscape plan now so we can add you to our work schedule.

Give us a call today at (818)894-8306. We're here to make sure all of your garden dreams come true!

The major reason lavender plants are so prized is that their flowers keep their fragrance when dried. Besides being beautiful and aromatic, lavender flowers are also edible. They can be used as a seasoning, added to salads, baked into cookies and brewed into tea. They can also be candied and used as a cake decoration.

For best drying results, harvest the flowers as the buds first begin to open. In general, wait until any rain or dew has dried from the plants. Harvest midday when the heat brings the most fragrance out of the flowers. Hang in small bunches upside down in a warm, dry spot with good air circulation and out of direct light.

Use rubber bands to tie the stems together for drying because they will contract along with the drying stems. If you wish to remove the flower buds from the stems for potpourri after drying, place the bound bundles inside a pillow case. Then roll it up and gently press and roll it on a hard surface--as if it were a rolling pin. (You can throw away the stems or take them camping and place on the campfire to repel mosquitoes.) Then scoop out the flower buds and place in sachets or potpourri dishes.

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How often should I water the plants in the ground in my garden?

Answer:
The simple answer would be however often it takes to keep your soil moist but not wet.

As a rule, the hotter it gets, the more you will have to water. In the cooler months, you only water between periods of extended dry weather or high wind, which can also stress or dry a plant out.

When it is hot, increase the length of time you water your plants, not the frequency of watering. Most plants need to be watered at least twice a week; new plants that have yet to be established should be checked every other day. Remember that checking does not necessarily mean watering! We recommend that the top couple of inches of ground dry out between waterings.

Using drip irrigation is the most effective method. It is also important to group plants with similar watering needs together.

If a plant is too dry, the foliage will have a wilted appearance or begin to burn on the outside leaf tips.

If a plant is too wet, it will lose its luster and quickly drop faded leaves, starting from the inside of the plant and working its way to the leaf tips.

Make sure not to use soft water on any plants. The salt in the water can burn or kill plants. Fluoridated water is fine, because your plants will look better when they smile.

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Most hibiscus flowers close up at night. You can keep them open using these tips:

Pick blossoms just as they're barely open at 9 or 10 am, and slip each one into an empty Sno-Cone cup to protect it. (Pick them right under the flower rather than at the base of the stem in order not to tear the bark.)

Put the Sno-Cone cups containing the flowers in a plastic bag and place them in the refrigerator for the day.

Take the flowers out in the evening. They'll stay open all night without water.

Because water is not needed, you can use these methods to arrange them. Spear the blossoms on toothpicks, and stick the toothpicks into arrangements. Or, to use the flowers in vases, spear them on long bamboo barbeque skewers and arrange the skewers. Or instead of the stiff bamboo skewers substitute the center veins of fronds cut from a pygmy date palm (Phoenix roebelenii). Cut off the individual leaflets from each vein so it becomes a bare stem before spearing a flower with its sharp tip. Your hibiscus will be transformed into cut flowers with long, graceful, arching stems.