Another hot and humid day. The weather forcast predicts that it will rain tonight. I hope that it does rain because I have used all of the water from the rain barrel.

Last night, I went to a lecture by Janet Macunovich at the Livonia Public Library. (This is the second time this year that I have went to one of her seminars.) The topic was Keep the Color Going: Important Summertime Strategies Toward Continuous Color. She is a very dynamic speaker--humorous while being very informative. She also had an excellent PowerPoint to accompany her presentation. I liked the pictures that she used because they were realistic. They really did look like true perrennial gardens instead of staged magazine photographs where plants that would never be in bloom at the same time are flowering together. In fact, she made the point that if you want to get ideas for your perennial garden not to look at magazines but to go on garden walks.

She emphasized that watering, weeding and pest management are the three critical maintenance strategies. However, I believe that mulching is even more important. Mulching helps to eliminate the need for watering (unless there are drought conditions), inhibits weeds and they add nutrients to the soil when they are broken down by the soil inhabitants. In addition, if the plants are healthy then they are able to fight off most diseases and pests. That's why I am so willing to spend a lot of money each year on mulch.

I also love her attitude about plants. She is not afraid to cut back plants to the ground when they are not attractive any longer. She showed pictures of how different types of ornaments can be used to cover the bare spots and also emphasized that bare space can be attractive. She pointed out that brown leaves and flowers can distract the eye from seeing the positives in the garden.