What to do this week: Keep planting annual flowers, tropical bulbs, floral containers, and vegetable gardens. Make plans for some nonprofit garden tours and events this month. “Gilded’’ is the theme of the always awesome annual Newport Flower Show, June 24-26, at Rosecliff, 548 Bellevue Ave. It’s a must if you loved “Downton Abbey.’’ (Visit NewportFlowerShow.com for details). The Garden Conservancy has its Greater Boston tour June 5 starting at 10 a.m. at the Wakefield Estate, 1465 Brush Hill Road, Milton. Visit opendaysprogram.org for other tours including one of Rehoboth, Seekonk, and Providence gardens June 11. Fruitlands Museum, 102 Prospect Hill Road, Harvard, hosts a Festival of Lavender June 5 from 2 to 3:30 p.m. (Visit fruitlands.org.)

Q: I expected a huge crop of squash (last year) but got one or two total (from about eight plants). Someone said squash are male/female and have to be fertilized and since bees are dying out, I should take a Q-Tip and transfer the pollen from male to female. Is that true? Guess I have to figure out which plant is which sex when I buy them in the first place.

S.S., Lexington

A: All cucurbits (squash, cucumbers, cantaloupe, watermelon and pumpkins) have both male and female flowers. The females produce fruit after bees deliver pollen to them from male flowers. Bees are not yet dying out, but they are struggling, thanks in part to pesticide use. To do the bees’ job, you need to know that male flowers are shorter and often grow in clusters, and start blooming earlier in the season, while the female flowers will have a bulge where they connect to their stems and where their fruit forms. To initiate flower sex, take a small brush, chopstick, or cotton swab and dip it into the heart of the male flower so it can pick up some pollen. Then touch it to the center of the female flower. Alternatively, you can pick the male flower and touch its anther directly to the center of the female flower. Voila! The good news is that each individual plant produces flowers of both sexes.

Q: I want to plant a hedge of roses along my busy road that will always be in bloom. There is some road salt and no irrigation. Is there any rose that will do the job?

G.K., Salem

A: Almost any low-maintenance shrub rose that is disease free makes a pretty good hedge, as long as it is cold hardy in New England, which is mostly Zones 6 near the coast to Zone 4 in the mountains. Breeders have produced near miraculous “landscape’’ roses that bloom constantly, are drought and disease resistant, and expand the uses for a flower once viewed as fussy and fragile. But there are still no roses that bloom in shade. They need six hours a day of DIRECT sunlight.

For a low hedge, such as around a swimming pool, you cannot beat Flower Carpet Roses, which I’ve happily grown for years. They come in many colors. Amber Floral Carpet is the tallest selection at 3½ feet. For a 2- to 5-foot hedge, many nursery proprietors, such as Maggie Oldfield of Thayer Nursery in Milton, recommend one of the tough and ubiquitous “Knock Out’’ roses, which come in assorted colors. I grow these, too, but mine did not survive last winter as well as my Floral Carpet roses. Other midsize hedge roses include Iceberg, which is white, and Carefree Delight and Bonica, both pink. For a hedge more than 5 feet tall, consider pink Carefree Wonder or William Baffin, part of the super-hardy Canadian Explorer series. (It honors a genius 17th-century navigator who discovered and mapped much of the Canadian Arctic. The unappreciative British establishment got him killed in a Middle East war and then tried to stiff his widow on his wages, so I say: Give that man a rose!) Plum red rosa rugosa and rugosa hybrids, such as Therese Bugnet (tair-EZ boon-YAY if you are compelled to pronounce it) or Hansa, make super hedges. They are sand and salt tolerant, good for seaside or roadside. And they do not require pruning! Most other shrub roses need to be sheared back by about one-third in early spring. Then take out any dead or spindly canes that are left behind. Fertilize roses monthly and water in the summer to keep them in bloom. If you leave them to fend for themselves, they may take a vacation during hot weather, but most will re-bloom in the fall.

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