The combination of a hard chill this past winter with little rain during the blooming season has resulted in bumper crops on many fruit trees. We recommend you thin fruit to about a "fist" apart but even so, those laden branches will be heavy.

Provide support for fruit tree limbs before they sag and break from the weight of their harvest with Prop-a-Crop™, an adjustable branch support made specifically for this job. It resembles a crutch, which, when you think about it, is perfect for the job. It is lightweight and easy to install. Save your harvest and protect your trees with Prop-a-Crop™.

All that fruit on your trees is a great temptation to neighborhood birds. Protect it with Birdscare Flash Tape, a mylar ribbon of red and silver that flashes in the slightest breeze, resembling fire.

Hang it in your trees at least 2 weeks before your fruit is ripe and send those greedy birds elsewhere. Too bad it doesn’t work for squirrels!

Stop teetering on that ladder trying to pick that fruit way up in your trees. The Fruit Picker from Bond makes it easier and safer to pick hard to reach fruit without a ladder.

Pick apples, oranges, peaches, apricots, and plums using the wires from the basket to pull the fruit into the soft foam bottom of the basket. It's lightweight and easy to use with a 2 section, 8' wood pole to extend your reach. Stay off the ladder and enjoy your harvest!

These handy tools will help you get the most from your harvest. While you are here be sure to pick up our FREE Backyard Orchard Guide and Fruit Tree Care Calendar for growing tips for success. Our experienced staff is happy to answer your questions and help you succeed...the first time!

Create your own masterpiece hanging basket the easy way with Angel Moss basket liners and hanging baskets. They are so easy to plant and maintain! Angel Moss needs less water than sphagnum moss and is much neater in appearance. Your plants will hold up longer, too!. In addition to hanging baskets, the Angel Moss line from Discoveries in Gardening includes window boxes and hayracks.

The Angel Moss itself is a totally renewable resource grown in New Zealand swamps with managed harvesting that actually increases the area of moss in the swamp. Discoveries in Gardening also offers a very good-looking Twig Basket and Window Box. Come see our new display of all the wonderful Discoveries in Gardening line and get inspired!

We offer moss basket planting classes if you need guidance, for a fee of $50 which includes all supplies. See our website, yamagamisnursery.com for more information. We're here to help you succeed...the first time!

Saturday, July 14th — Statuary Order Day
From 10 AM to 2 PM — 1 Day Only

All items from A. Silvestri Statuary paid for and ordered that day will receive a 20% discount. Joe Milner. Factory Rep, will have color samples and answer questions to help you place your orders. A. Silvestri offers fountains, benches, birdbaths and animal statuary. View their catalog at www.asilvestri.com to see their extensive selection. Enhance your landscape with statuary from A. Silvestri and get a 20% discount too!

Do your last thinning on deciduous fruit trees after June drop, 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 in 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. You may worry if you are new to fruit trees, but don't panic! It's a natural part of the cycle. 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 fruit on your trees earlier, you enabled the remaining fruit to grow larger and thus will have less fruit dropping 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 any fallen fruit under the tree before it has a chance to rot and spread disease. If it's healthy, chop it and add it to your compost pile (cover it with earth to keep away flies and rodents). Also water your deciduous fruit trees deeply in June and July.