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:
  1. Run and time each zone of sprinklers until runoff occurs.  That is your cycle run time for that zone (typically 5 minutes or less).
  2. 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.
  3. 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%.