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Green Thumb Tips - July & August

Echter’s Plant Doctors are available during store hours seven days a week to answer
your gardening questions. For accurate diagnosis, it helps to bring in a sample.
 

Flowers Gardens

If your pansies were too nice to take out in June but are looking sad now, replace them with some heat-loving annuals like periwinkle, salvia, marigolds, celosia, gazania, geraniums, portulaca, and verbena for a great color show in summer.

 

"Dead-head" (pinch off the spent blooms) on perennials, annuals and roses for longer flowering periods
and more and larger blooms.

Continue fertilizing annuals and perennials as instructed on your favorite fertilizer. This will give you continued flowering all season long.

 

Cut flowers for bouquets early in the morning and place the stems immediately into a bucket of water to keep them fresh until you are able to arrange them.

 

Check the water needs for hanging baskets and planters daily. The wind and sun dry them quickly.

 

Pull the weeds out of your flower beds before they get large. They are competing with your plants for water. Don't let them produce seed or you will have even more next season.

 

Yarrow, strawflowers, celosia, and gomphrena can be cut for flowers and dried.

 

Take pictures of your container combinations so you can repeat or modify the designs next year.


Perennials & Roses

If your iris did not bloom well this year, they may need to be divided. July is the time to   divide overcrowded irises. Dig up the whole clump, sort out the rhizomes which have leaves on them and discard those old rhizomes. Replant the good ones after improving the soil with compost and working in a little super phosphate into the soil below the root zone.

Continue to fertilize roses throughout the summer to produce nice big and beautiful flowers. Roses are heavy feeders. Follow the instructions on the fertilizer of your choice and water at the base of the plant.  August is the last time that roses should be fertilized, however. Roses should then start to “harden off” for winter.

Plant fall-blooming perennials like asters, mums, agastache and Autumn Joy sedum for color August through October.   

 

Prevent rose and perennial diseases like powdery mildew from taking hold by using a systemic fungicide before the problem appears. Once those diseases appear it is very difficult to control. Bee balm, phlox, columbines and lilacs are some of the plants prone to powdery mildew.

 

Remove old, spent rose blooms after they fade, cutting the stem just above the uppermost 5-leaflet node on the stem.

 

Reapply mulch where it has been blown or pulled away.

 

Look for empty spaces in your garden where you could plant some bulbs this fall between perennials to add more color to next spring's show. Our fall bulbs usually arrive around Labor Day weekend.

 

 

Vegetable Gardens

Water your garden early in the morning while it is still cool. There is much less evaporation at this time
than in the heat of the day. Avoid overhead watering when tomatoes, peppers, squash, cucumbers, corn and some other vegetables are in flower. They need pollination and the pollen can be washed away, resulting in fewer fruits.

Plant broccoli, carrots, turnips, lettuce and radishes now to enjoy a nice fall garden. Choose early varieties so that they will mature before freezing temperatures.

 

Pinch off the flower buds of onions to direct energy to the developing bulb.

 

Remove vegetable plants that have finished producing. If they are free of insects and disease, compost
the plants; otherwise dispose of them so they don't infect your other plants.

 

Fertilize your vegetable gardens to maximize your harvest. Fertilize strawberry beds with ammonium sulfate now for more berries next spring.

 

Vegetables will stay fresher if you harvest them from the garden early in the day. Clean them as quickly
as possible and refrigerate (except tomatoes which should not be refrigerated for best flavor).

 

Harvest corn when the husk is tight over the ear and the silks are dried to a dark brown.

Lawn Care

Those impossible weeds like bindweed, dandelions and thistle in your lawn can be controlled with
Ferti-lome's Weed Free Zone.

Don't expect cool season bluegrass to look as green in summer as it does in spring and fall. If a lawn
goes somewhat dormant in summer, it will still green back as soon as the weather cools and more moisture is available.

Do you have dry spots in your lawn where water won’t penetrate? A lawn irrigator will put the water right
at the roots and aerate those areas so that water will percolate down. Revive helps water to soak into the ground before it runs off of slopes. It also helps water to penetrate deeper into the soil.

 

It is best to avoid fast release nitrogen fertilizer on your lawns in the heat of the summer. If your did not make the second application of fertilizer in June, our recommendation is Green Thumb Lawn Food for summertime feeding of your lawn.

Trees & Shrubs

Deep watering of trees, shrubs, roses, vines and perennials is essential this time of year. Water thoroughly, but only when the plants require water. Check soil 3-4 inches deep to determine when these plants need to be watered.

Protect your trees and shrubs from grass trimmers. The best way to protect these plants is eliminate the grass directly around the tree, encircle it with weed fabric, and mulch with bark or rock.

Examine all trees, shrubs, roses, perennials and annuals for insects and diseases. This is the time of year these problems begin. There are controls for any of these situations.

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