Perking Up the Mid-Summer Garden

Hints on keeping the summer garden looking good.

Agastache x ‘Acapulco Salmon & Pink’
Item # 11829 		Agastache 'Acapulco Salmon & Pink' (USPP 16,023)
Acapulco Salmon & Pink Hummingbird Mint

Each $7.99
3 to 6 $7.79
7 or more $7.59
  • Topic: Summer Care
  • Author: Cindy Bellinger
  • Keywords: watering, weeding, mulching, summer, Maintenance, gardens
  • Date: July 2003

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Everything’s blooming, the greenery couldn’t be better, and I’ve been enjoying my morning tea sitting out in the garden. There’s nothing like enjoying the fruits of all that labor. As you well know, though, a gardener’s work is never done. But someone once told me mid-summer is the time to practice benign neglect, as she called it. “You can keep your eye on things from the chaise lounge,” she said. “At least for a little bit.”

Now is the time to sit back and take in the garden we’ve created. Still, from that lofty place in the hammock, we can always see a few more things that need tending. Below are a few mid-summer reminders for perking up the garden.

Soil and Watering

  • Loosen hard packed soil to aerate and allow water to penetrate
  • Use mulch to moderate soil temperatures
  • Newly installed plants may need frequent waterings during heat spells; check drip system emitters

Plants

  • Divide lilies, irises and poppies after they’ve bloomed
  • Keep up with weeding
  • Dead-head flowers (but leave a few spikes and stalks of re-seeding plants such as Columbine, Chocolate Flower, Blue Flax and any of the Penstemons)
  • Shear back the flowers on ground covers to stimulate a thicker mass-Veronica, Creeping Flax and Thyme
  • Plant the warm weather native grass lawns such as Blue Grama and Buffalo

Fertilizers

  • Use high quality balanced fertilizer such as liquid Earth Juice
  • Give a dose of root stimulator

David Salman highly recommends using the Siphonject for this.

Really, all this isn’t a lot to do and it will give your plants that mid-summer boost and let you take pleasure in your garden for a few more weeks.