July Gardening Tips
When the high heat of summer arrives, be prepared with our Gardening Tips for July:
- Deeply water all of your summer annuals because summer heat can wilt them.
- Fill in bare spaces with summer and fall flowers, including Alyssum, Cosmos, Petunia, and Zinnia.
- Insect pests proliferate during hot weather. Treat as populations increase to noticeable amounts.
- Fertilize citrus and water thoroughly.
- When temperatures rise, the water needs for fruiting plants can double or triple.
- Harvest vegetables at their peak flavor: Summer Squash and Zucchini are ripe when their skin is easily nicked with a fingernail. Corn is ripe when you squeeze a couple of kernels and a milky liquid squirts out.
- Prevent water runoff from lawns irrigated with high-precipitation spray nozzles by taking the following steps:
- Run and time each zone of sprinklers until runoff occurs. That is your cycle run time for that zone (typically 5 minutes or less).
- Reset/program your irrigation controller for that amount of time, then allow a 30-minute rest to allow the water to infiltrate and percolate into the soil.
- Program your controller to do this two more times. This will allow for less evaporation and runoff. (Example: Run time of 4 minutes for zone 1. Start time #1 – 4am, start time #2 – 4:30am, #3 – 5am.)
- Many flowers are most fragrant and beautiful during summer. Harvest in early morning when their stems have peak moisture content and re-cut stems immediately before adding to a vase.
- Prune back spring blooming perennials to encourage regrowth and reblooming.
- Release beneficial predators such as lady beetles to control aphids.
- Drip irrigation systems are an effective method of conserving water during high demand months.
- Be careful when using a weed whacker around trees because it can damage the trunk and possibly destroy it.
- Irrigation controller budget should be set at 100%.