Bringing the outdoors in: Tips for creating a floral display

This is a good time to cut some of your outdoor flowers for an indoor display. It is best to cut the flowers during a cool part of the day and to put them in water as quickly as possible. Remove any foliage that will be under water in the vase. Keep your arrangement in a cool room out of direct sunlight. Adding a preservative to the water can lengthen the life of the flowers.

Bearded iris

Bearded iris can be divided and replanted after they have finished blooming. Be sure to discard any shriveled or diseased parts. Avoid planting the new sections too deeply (which is easy to do if you are not careful).

Harvesting vegetables

Keep the following general rules in mind when harvesting most vegetable crops. First, it is important to harvest vegetables when they are at the peak of their flavor. Younger vegetables and fruits are often more tender than those left on the plant longer.

The length of time vegetables remain edible depends on weather conditions. High temperatures hasten maturity.

It is also important to handle them carefully during harvest time. Check the garden daily and remove any ripe, damaged or misshapen fruits. Fruits that are not easily removed from the plant, such as eggplant, should be cut with a knife.

Harvest regularly to encourage production. Many plants, such as cucumber, okra and zucchini will stop producing if mature fruits are not harvested.

Pine disease

If the new growth at the tips of your pine’s branches has turned brown, a disease called Diplodia tip blight may be the problem. It is too late to spray fungicides now, as infection occurs in the spring. Prune out dead tips in dry weather to reduce the spread of infection.

Disinfect pruners between plants when pruning out diseased branches. I use Lysol disinfectant for sanitizing my pruning tools.

• Tim Johnson is director of horticulture at Chicago Botanic Garden, chicagobotanic.org.