Click here to see what the Behnkes experts are doing in their own gardens and recommend to customers.  And please, if you know of another task that should be done in June, let us know in a comment and we’ll add it.  We want this resource to grow and be as helpful and super-local as possible.

Vegetable Garden of Joe Lamp'l in June.

Photo by Joe Lamp’l of his garden in North Carolina.  Lovely!

If you’re customers of Behnkes, you’re probably pretty eco-savvy about gardening already, but why not take a short quiz to find out for sure? It’s here on the Metro DC Lawn and Garden Blog, brought to us by the Washington, D.C. area’s Council of Governments and written by eco-gardening expert Betsy Franz.

One of many gorgeous sights to be seen at Ladew Gardens this month.

Here’s our latest To-Do in the Garden List, for the busy month of May and please leave a comment if there’s anything you think we should add.

You know what else is great to do this month?  Visit a public garden, like Ladew pictured above. Not to mention the National Arboretum, Brookside Gardens – oh, we could go on.

by Larry Hurley

Why you might mulch around trees

Existing trees don’t really need mulch, but there are three good reasons to mulch one anyway:

1. Aesthetics – it serves as sort of a frame around the base of the tree.  It’s tidy.
2. Weed control – weeds are difficult to remove around the base of a tree unless you hand weed; this is impractical in a large landscape
3. Protection – if there aren’t any weeds or grass near the trunk, you won’t whack it with the lawnmower, string weeder, and so on.  This was, I believe, the original reason that commercial landscapers began mulching around trees. Especially on trees with thin bark (e.g., Japanese maples and beech) you can cause a lot of damage just by banging into it.  This is sometimes called “lawnmower blight” in a rare flash of humor from plant pathologists.

How to mulch

WRONG way to mulch!

If you do want to mulch established trees, this is how should it be done:

1. Keep the mulch away from touching the trunk by 4 to 6 inches.  Mulch that actually touches the trunk encourages damage by voles (mouse-like rodents) that may chew on the bark under cover of the mulch, and encourages fungal diseases because the bark of the tree is continually wet from the mulch.  In other words, don’t copy the “mulch volcanoes” you see sometimes done by landscape crews, where they pile it up against the trunk of the tree.
2. Apply the mulch so it’s level, and no deeper than three inches.

This will protect your trees from the lawn mower and help prevent weeds, while creating an attractive accent at the base each tree.

Photo credit: Extension Horticulture.

Click here to see our compilation of gardening tips for the month of April.  It’s the what-to-do and how-to-do-it by the experts at Behnkes and other local sources.  All local advice for local gardeners.

Forsythia (L) and Quince (R)