Heritage Perennials® are grown by Valleybrook Gardens, an innovative and leading producer of over 1500 varieties of perennials, hardy ferns and ornamental grasses. Our distinctive blue pots of HERITAGE PERENNIALS® are available from independent retailers and dealers in many parts of Canada and the USA. We're passionate about perennials! We hope this newsletter helps you to enjoy your perennial gardening even more.

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Our best-selling book, the Perennial Gardening Guide is a handy reference used by gardeners across North America — written by our own Horticulturist, John Valleau. Just released in a brand new 4th edition!

Lush late-spring and early summer gardens are the rule everywhere when there is sufficient moisture. This is one of the peak times in the perennial border, vibrant with mauves, pinks, purples and blues. It's also the easiest time of year to have a great perennial garden. One of the biggest challenges is to somehow continue that interest throughout the rest of the season, and it takes a little planning. It also takes some timely cutting back in that moment when your Catmint collapses under it's own weight, and some clever planning ahead for when your bleedingheart disintegrates into a pile of mush a month from now. A perennial gardener can feel very proud in June, only to get discouraged by a less-than-attractive summer and fall display.

We're here to help! With our amazing Search features and helpful "How To" articles, there is plenty of information on our site to help you make perennial garden look great from early spring to very late fall. And don't forget, I'm here to personally answer your questions. Except for this coming week -- I'm heading on a road trip, but I'll be back in the office on June 16th, answering each and every question as time allows.

-- John Valleau, editor.

Diana in Kamloops, BC suggests "Small children are often tactile and intrigued by touch. I encourage children visiting my garden to touch the Lamb's-ears." Any soft and fuzzy plant has touch-appeal to children of all ages. Consider Silver Sage (Salvia argentea), or Giant Silver Mullien, which makes enormous candelabra spikes of yellow flowers that are truly silly and fun.

Diana also suggested kids might like fun perennial names, such as Pussy-toes or maybe Hen-and-Chicks, which can grow practically anywhere, even in an old shoe or boot!

Garden book author Marjorie Harris told me that her little grandchildren just love the odd but flashy look of the Shooting-star growing beside her back steps. Daisies of all kinds have universal "He/She loves me..." appeal with kids, and so do other blooms with unusual shapes or colours, especially bright and garish or even mysteriously black flowers.

Perennials with fragrant leaves or flowers might be appealing. Golden Lemon Balm and licorice-scented Anise-hyssop are both good strong plants that will put up with children tugging off a few leaves now and again.

Many of the fragrant perennial herbs are also edible, offering a whole extra sensory world for children to discover, but a world that many parents expressed concern about when we were gathering ideas. We've pulled together a whole article on Edible Perennials and these are great ones to teach children about. On the flip side, a good number of garden plants, including some perennials, are considered toxic to some degree, so we've put together a special page on Poisonous Plants in response to this. Please note that the list only refers to perennials and does not include woody plants such as trees, shrubs or vines, or indoor houseplants.

Child-proofing the garden is a route that many parents choose to go -- and that's understandable -- but I found an interesting quote from author Rick Darke in his new book The American Woodland Garden, when referring to the poisonous red berries of Baneberry (Actaea): "Indeed the brightly colored fruits seem like they might be alluring to young children; however, their bitter, unpleasant taste makes it extremely unlikely that even the most curious child would consume sufficient quantity to do any harm. Personally, I believe it is good for people to learn at a young age that the entire world is not to be consumed." Remember, this is just an opinion. Your garden, your choice.

Planting a special garden to Attract Butterflies and Hummingbirds can be a fun project for the whole family. Maybe include a stepping-stone pathway right through it, so kids can feel like they're in the middle of a wildflower meadow.

Readers had more great ideas to share:

• "When our children outgrew the sandbox, we removed the sand, mixed in soil and peat moss and turned it into a mini-garden. One year they planted lettuce and radishes and small round carrots, and one year a wildflower garden! -- Laura
• "Grow a tent or teepee with pole beans." This could be easily adapted to other types of vines, including pumpkins, gourds or even Golden Hops.
• "Pint-sized tools for kids can make gardening both fun and easier to do. I don't really expect them to weed, but give them their own space and if they want to drive trucks in it, let them!" -- Diana
• "I have heard of an idea to plant a maze of sunflowers for kids to run through. They can't get lost like in a corn field and they can eat the seeds when the get bored of the maze!" -- Sandy

Last summer we put together a new "How To" article called "Summer Pinching, Cutting Back and Deadheading Tricks" that will give you more June garden chores than you could ever have wished for! I give you free reign to cut back any perennials that you want, except don't cut back your spring bulbs, true Lilies or peonies. All of these require their foliage to ripen in order to have good blooming next year. Peony leaves stay attractive all season but the bulb leaves can be gently tugged free once they turn brown.

QUESTION: I am looking for an inexpensive way to mark the flowers in my perennial garden. I have tried several different things such as the labels you can buy -- wooden flat stakes that you can write on and the metal wire stakes -- but they don't seem to last or the writing disappears over time. What do you use? Brenda -- Massachusetts

ANSWER: This is one area that gardeners get very creative with. I also have used those wire stakes with the flat metal plate to write on, but I find when I clean up the garden in the spring half of them end up in the compost pile. Wax china marker pencils work fairly well on these, but I find regular HB pencil actually lasts longer outdoors. Those black ink felt nursery markers fade so badly within a single season, I would never recommend them at all.

Some gardeners scrounge old aluminium or plastic venetian blinds and cut these into appropriate lengths to use as garden labels. The smooth surface is good for writing. It the labels are mostly pushed into the ground they are fairly unobtrusive. Aluminium labels of various sizes are available through mail-order nurseries and online through some of the garden product websites. These tend to be on the expensive side, but they last well outdoors and you can choose the size that best suits your needs.

Those white plastic T-stake type labels sold at garden centers are sometimes also available in black, which looks a whole lot better. The heads can be bent to a slight angle, making them easier to read. Several gardeners I know have invested in a Brother II label maker (check any big box office supply store) and depending on which kind of plastic ribbon you use, they are easily read and last outside for ages. So do the adhesive labels from those old-fashioned Dymo label makers, especially the black ones. Typing labels is slow... you spin the dial to the appropriate letter then click.

You might consider using rocks! Smooth rocks can hold writing fairly well but you might have to experiment with permanent markers to find the best one. Just stick the rock at the base of the plant and it will blend right in.

When planning for perennial interest in your garden, stretch your arms out and in an area roughly that diameter, aim to have three different perennials -- one each for spring, summer and fall interest, plus one more that gives mainly foliage effect. This is a simple and easy trick to help you in border planning, and something you can do right on the sidewalk at the garden center.

For impulse shoppers, an even easier way is to just keep going back to the garden center every two to three weeks throughout the season. Each time you're there, look for something new and fresh that's in bloom, and you're sure to develop a collection of plants over time that pull colour from early spring through to very late fall.

This is a slim paperback book but a good bargain for those of you involved in teaching Elementary school science, or looking for summer camp projects. It's really geared towards classroom settings, with twenty different garden type projects using easily rummaged-up tools, props and ingredients. From raising butterflies or building a worm condo to pressing flowers and making clay "fossil" necklaces using fern fronds, the projects are creative and look like lots of mucky fun -- just what kids love!