Now that we’ve exhausted ourselves by planting up and mulching beds, putting in the veg, and making sure that each window box and hanging basket is just so, it’s time to… DO MORE WORK.
This is the season to nourish the healthy growers and rejuvenate the flowers that have been over-watered/smashed/defoliated by our recent storms.
Things to do:
Give everything a good feed. Tired plants will especially appreciate a
boost of properly mixed liquid seaweed fertilizer. Hanging baskets
become dry and hungry quickly, especially on sunny and windy days.
Prune. Prune. PRUNE. You should be deadheading perennials like crazy:
cut expired flowers back to a full set of leaves; be sure to clip the seed
heads off iris, lilacs, and other pod formers, as letting those grow robs the
plant of energy; attend to rampant re-blooming roses (especially rugosas),
which will respond to a big haircut. After their first round of heavy
production, I reduce mine by 1/3 height for another full bloom before the
Japanese beetles (early arrivers in some areas this year) do their nasty
work.
Neaten up annuals by constantly clipping finished flowers back to the
next set of buds. Plants usually respond to cutting with fuller stems and
blooms. Many annuals produce bigger and better (sweet peas, cosmos,
zinnias) color with frequent harvesting. So bring lots of flowers into your
home, guilt-free; you are doing your plants a service by filling your vases.
Remember that hanging plants rarely last the full season. Whether you
replace individual elements or all of the annuals in your baskets, change
out the soil, add slow-release fertilizer, and water faithfully. Some
hangers may need moisture twice a day.
Have you heard of the Chelsea Chop? It’s a pruning technique meant to
lengthen the bloom time of perennials by taking them down about one-
third in height. You can shape many of your plants still to flower,
especially phlox family members, by giving them a rounded shaping right
now.
Remember that discard piles covered with leaves and grass clippings can
offer friendly cover for all sorts of native creatures. They will appreciate
your careful mounds and pay you back by breaking down what you leave
them into next year’s compost.
AND
Start seeds for next year’s lupines right now. See the April 2023 Garden
Clippings for instructions.
A friend used to say that if you haven’t filled at least one big bag each day with
dead heads and stems, get back to work! The more you take from your garden,
the more it will give back to you.
Canny Cahn is a member of GCW and Chairs the GCW Mentorship Program.
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