Maintaining Color In Your Garden Through The Peak Summer Months
Your gardens and containers have now been planted for some time, and you’re enjoying the flowering fruits of your labor. Hopefully, at this time of the year there is little left to be done but enjoy the beauty of your flowers. Except for a few minor tasks, of course!
Watering – It obviously goes without saying that the water needs of your plants are at their peak at this time of the year. With water availability more of an issue in many parts of the country, help maintain your soil moisture with organic mulches such as pine bark or cedar mulch, or use plastic mulch earlier in the season when you are first laying out your garden bed. It helps keep weeds down, too! Drip irrigation is also a great way to keep your plants healthy while conserving water.
Fertilization – There is an absolutely gorgeous planting of hot pink spreading petunias near where I work in Medford. Last month, the plants were well filled out and full of color. It cheered me up every time I drove by. When I drove by the other day, I noticed and was disappointed to see that the planting was becoming stressed. The plants were beginning to yellow, with not nearly the number of flowers as before. You see, the landscapers had simply planted those petunias and walked away. It was clear to me that no one was maintaining this bed and the petunias are now under nourished. Don’t forget to consistently fertilize your annuals. If you like these types of products, use a slow release granular fertilizer or consider a liquid feed that can be used in conjunction with your hose, sprinkler or drip system. Most annuals in the garden should be fed about every 2 weeks if you’re using a liquid feed. Container plants should be fed about once a week. The general rule of thumb is to go with more frequent applications of a more dilute solution. Less frequent, heavier concentrations are apt to burn your plants and damage the micro-flora and fauna living in your soil. Rather than get fancy, fill a bucket with a very dilute solution of liquid feed and dump a jarful on each plant. The plants love it and it’s really a very therapeutic activity!
Dead Heading – Toss this activity into that therapeutic activity class also. Some people enjoy deadheading plants, others couldn’t be bothered. The bottom line is if you deadhead your annuals once the blooms are spent, there is a greater chance of new flower production that will last later into the season. Annuals such as geraniums really benefit from deadheading, because otherwise the spent flower stalks simply look like forlorn little umbrellas. Other annuals need little to no deadheading, such as spreading petunias. The spend flowers just wither away and are generally covered by new growth (another reason why I love them, but I do really enjoy geraniums as well!).
Weeding – Out of all the gardening tasks there are, this is my least favorite. There are a number of methods to keep your weed population down … organic mulches, herbicides and plain old-fashioned weed pulling. You may want to consider landscape cloth when you are first preparing your garden beds. And certainly, container gardens are less prone to weed development than garden beds. The bottom line is a weed-reduced garden promotes better growth of your annuals, which hopefully over time will grow large enough to crowd out those nasty weeds in the first place!
These few small steps will help keep your annuals at maximum performance throughout the summer and well into the autumn months.
Your gardens and containers have now been planted for some time, and you’re enjoying the flowering fruits of your labor. Hopefully, at this time of the year there is little left to be done but enjoy the beauty of your flowers. Except for a few minor tasks, of course!
Watering – It obviously goes without saying that the water needs of your plants are at their peak at this time of the year. With water availability more of an issue in many parts of the country, help maintain your soil moisture with organic mulches such as pine bark or cedar mulch, or use plastic mulch earlier in the season when you are first laying out your garden bed. It helps keep weeds down, too! Drip irrigation is also a great way to keep your plants healthy while conserving water.
Fertilization – There is an absolutely gorgeous planting of hot pink spreading petunias near where I work in Medford. Last month, the plants were well filled out and full of color. It cheered me up every time I drove by. When I drove by the other day, I noticed and was disappointed to see that the planting was becoming stressed. The plants were beginning to yellow, with not nearly the number of flowers as before. You see, the landscapers had simply planted those petunias and walked away. It was clear to me that no one was maintaining this bed and the petunias are now under nourished. Don’t forget to consistently fertilize your annuals. If you like these types of products, use a slow release granular fertilizer or consider a liquid feed that can be used in conjunction with your hose, sprinkler or drip system. Most annuals in the garden should be fed about every 2 weeks if you’re using a liquid feed. Container plants should be fed about once a week. The general rule of thumb is to go with more frequent applications of a more dilute solution. Less frequent, heavier concentrations are apt to burn your plants and damage the micro-flora and fauna living in your soil. Rather than get fancy, fill a bucket with a very dilute solution of liquid feed and dump a jarful on each plant. The plants love it and it’s really a very therapeutic activity!
Dead Heading – Toss this activity into that therapeutic activity class also. Some people enjoy deadheading plants, others couldn’t be bothered. The bottom line is if you deadhead your annuals once the blooms are spent, there is a greater chance of new flower production that will last later into the season. Annuals such as geraniums really benefit from deadheading, because otherwise the spent flower stalks simply look like forlorn little umbrellas. Other annuals need little to no deadheading, such as spreading petunias. The spend flowers just wither away and are generally covered by new growth (another reason why I love them, but I do really enjoy geraniums as well!).
Weeding – Out of all the gardening tasks there are, this is my least favorite. There are a number of methods to keep your weed population down … organic mulches, herbicides and plain old-fashioned weed pulling. You may want to consider landscape cloth when you are first preparing your garden beds. And certainly, container gardens are less prone to weed development than garden beds. The bottom line is a weed-reduced garden promotes better growth of your annuals, which hopefully over time will grow large enough to crowd out those nasty weeds in the first place!
These few small steps will help keep your annuals at maximum performance throughout the summer and well into the autumn months.
1 comment:
Thank you for your great advice. It's wonderful that you took the time to explain some of these things. This year is my first garden, and yeah, the August blues do exist!
My blog is (brand new this summer) www.citylovescountry.com
Take care!
Dina
Post a Comment