To refresh, revive and reinvigorate your lawn, garden and planters
1. When was the last time you fed them?
Annual planters, hanging baskets and window boxes have no doubt run through any nutrients that were in the soil when you planted them. It’s time to give them a shot of liquid fertilizer and we suggest you keep it up every two weeks throughout the summer. We recommend Fertilome’s Blooming and Rooting for big beautiful blooms all season long.
2. Just take a little off the ends.
Hanging baskets tend to get leggy this time of year, stretching their tendrils while failing to produce blooms. It may be hard to do, but snipping the ends off by ¼ to ½ is just what your baskets need. This produces new growth in the center of the basket and encourages new blooms.
Feed. Trim. Repeat.
3. What to do with spent blooms?
Blooms that have faded should be deadheaded, or snipped below the bloom and above the first set of healthy leaves. When you deadhead you channel the plants energy away from seed production and into re-blooming or strengthening the root system and limbs. The plant looks better, and you feel better, after a good deadheading session.
4. Turn off the spigot WHEN Mother Nature provides.
Keep an eye on the skies in terms of rainfall amounts as that can cause almost as much damage to your lawn and shrubs as too little water. Overwatered lawns and shrubs tend to look yellow, begin wilting and develop black spots on their leaves. An application of lawn food may help restore some nutrients, in addition you should cut out any supplemental watering you may be doing and wait patiently until the sun returns and does its job.
5. They’ve lived a good life, but it may be time to replace and replant.
Trees and shrubs have a lifecycle and some may be coming to the end of theirs. If that is the case, you may want to refresh your landscape beds with a mini or full overhaul. That may be more than you want to tackle on your own. If so, now is a great time to have a conversation with one of our landscape professionals and get your project on their calendar. Now booking into September.
While the dog days of summer may beckon me to sit under the shade of a tree and sip a cool glass of lemonade, the season is short and my mid-summer checklist is calling.
@whiteoakgardens