The calendar says August, but this is the peak garden season for locals, thanks to our long growing season. It’s not unusual for local gardens to continue to bloom and provide a bountiful harvest well into September and October. Thus, here are some peak-season chores in the garden.
The Big D. The D stands for deadheading. Deadheading does not have anything to do with the Grateful Dead. Instead, deadheading is simply a fancy horticultural term for cutting old flowers off of plants such as roses, marigolds, geraniums, daylilies, salvias, dahlias and more.
Nobody likes to stare at brown and dying flowers, but it’s even more important for your plants. The job of plants is to die and send out seeds. Old flowers turn into seed pods. By cutting away old flowers, you are helping your plants devote energy into sending out new buds and flowers rather than sending energy into seeds. It’s that simple.
Deadheading can be monotonous because it takes time. However, you can save time deadheading when it comes to plants covered with dozens of dying miniscule blossoms. I take the hedge shears and give the entire plant a haircut. This works extremely well with my geraniums, coreopsis, nepeta and campanula. It’s hard to sacrifice the buds I can see waiting to bloom, but if I wait for those to mature, the whole plants will soon be finished for the season. That haircut is a renewal of life.
The Big W. Yes, I am a fan of that old-time wacky movie “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World,” where everyone was searching for The Big W. But during our peak garden season, watering is The Big W. Even if you have automatic sprinklers, extra watering is usually necessary. After all, there are container plants on the porch, hanging baskets on the patio and maybe a few vegetable plants in large half-wine barrels. Usually, these require hand-watering.
This time of year, you probably need to hand-water outdoor container plants every other day or so. Don’t water by the calendar; instead, water by the weather. If the fog comes rolling in for a couple days straight, you can probably stretch your watering an extra day. If it’s extremely hot, you may have to hand-water every day.
When you do water, try to soak plants rather than sprinkle. Soaking encourages deeper, healthier roots. If you’re hand-watering ground plantings, try to form earthen basins around plants to hold extra water.
Finally, we come to fertilizing. Plants, lawns, trees – everything – will grow better if you feed them. It almost doesn’t matter what type of fertilizer you use, just do it. Dry fertilizers are usually the cheapest. You can buy 20-pound bags of fertilizer at any garden center. I also spread time-release fertilizer pellets such as Osmocote. Liquid fertilizers like Miracle-Gro are also OK for quick shots of food. The advantage with spraying liquid fertilizers from hose-end sprayers is that your plants absorb food through the leaves, stems and branches instead of just the roots.
There are your peak garden chores. Get growing!
