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Archive for Gardening Checklists
Purple Beautyberry
LAWN—The rainiest and the coldest months of the year are usually January and February. Avoid walking on soggy garden soil, particularly clay found in the Piedmont (Upstate South Carolina). On dry days, mow dormant, warm-season lawns. Mowing will remove fallen leaves and pine needles. Check lawn for winter weeds.
PRUNE—Now is the time to prune hybrid tea roses. They bloom only on new wood. Cut back canes one-third to one-half its height leaving canes at least 18 inches long. Cut above a swelling bud pointing out from the center. Remove all suckers and dead wood. Prune climbing roses to remove twiggy growth and weak shoots. Prune canes that flowered last year to three or four buds.
BIRDS—With gardens bare and bird baths frozen, our feathered friends are without food and water. Make bird treats to hang from tree limbs and put out seed and water. (Bird treat recipes can be found on my website www.itsallabouthome.com)
PREPARE—As long as soil is not wet or frozen, begin turning the soil in beds.
PLAN—Peruse seed catalogs and plan your vegetable and flower gardens.
PLANT―Even during the chill of January, you can plant new shrubs and trees. If you don’t see much color in your landscape during the winter, consider planting shrubs with bright colored berries. One of my additions this month will be Beautyberry. Its bright purple berries will complement my pink and purple themed garden nicely and liven up the gray days of winter.
Download January Gardening Checklist
Categories : Gardening Checklists
LAWNS― July heat is hard on your lawn. Help your lawn out with these few suggestions:
- Raise your mower blade and cut less often. Tall turf shades the soil, slows evaporation, and reduces weeds. Allow lawn clippings to stay in place to help hold in moisture and add nutrients to your soil.
- Water deeply and less often. Try an hour once a week or at most twice per week. Water early in the morning before the sun comes up.
FLOWERS—Flowers can thrive, even in the hottest months of the year. To maintain the beauty blooming in your garden, remember to:
- Continue to pinch the top ½ to 1 inch of new growth from your mums during the first part of July. Mums, left unattended, can become leggy and unattractive..
- “Deadhead” your perennials that have bloomed. Not only will you have a neater looking garden, you’ll encourage repeat blooming.
- Turn, Turn, Turn—Keep your hanging baskets and containers beautiful and full by turning them every few days. By giving your containers an equal amount of sunlight, you’ll keep your plants from being one sided.
- Weeding—Keep the spotlight on your plants by eliminating the unsightly weeds in your beds. Try setting aside a small amount of time for weeding daily. When broken down in small time increments, this chore won’t feel as tedious.
- Share—If you’ve been blessed with a garden blooming in fragrant color or have a bounty of vegetables, share them with others. Your thoughtfulness will brighten someone’s day.
- Plan—Fall will be here before you know it. Take pictures of each area of your yard and keep a “what’s blooming” journal. When fall planting season arrives, you’ll have a head start on knowing what colors and plants will compliment your existing landscape.
Categories : Gardening Checklists
hydrangeasGarden Week – June 5-11
Summer begins June 21st PRUNE:
- To encourage branching and development of compact bushy mums, pinch them back beginning in the spring as soon as the new growth is 4-6″ tall. Use your thumb nail and index finger to remove about 1/2 of the new growth at the top of each and every shoot. Repeat this procedure through the summer on new shoots 3-5” long.
- Prune your climbing roses after they finish their spring bloom. Remove dead or weak wood. These plants will set flower buds for next year during the summer, so pruning later might remove next year’s flowers.
- Deadhead bulbs and annuals. Remove spent blossoms from spring-flowering bulbs and annuals. Let bulb foliage die back without removing it.
- Fertilize warm-season grasses such as Bermuda, St. Augustine, and Zoysi.
- According to the Farmer’s Almanac, June 9-11th are favorable dates for planting flowers and vegetables (peas, beans, tomatoes)
- Flowering shrubs, roses, and annuals to promote flowering.
- Temperatures have been way above average for this time of year with temperatures exceeding 90 degrees. Water containers daily. Set irrigation system to run early in the morning. In the Piedmont area, our clay soil requires more frequent, shorter cycles in order for water to soak in.
- Staycationing? Enjoy your backyard garden room. Bring the fun outside.
- Traveling near Myrtle Beach? You won’t want to miss Brookgreen Gardens. This beautiful oasis offers something for the entire family. Learn a little South Carolina rice history on their water tour, stroll through their formal gardens, and enjoy some cool summer evening musical entertainment. http://www.brookgreen.org/
May is the time to:
PLANT VEGETABLES – beans, cantaloupe, cucumbers, eggplant, honeydew, okra, southern peas, peppers, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, and watermelon.
PLANT FALL BLOOMING BULBS – Did your garden lack color last fall? Now’s the time to plant autumn crocus, resurrection lily, spider lilies, and yellow danford iris to brighten up your fall this year.
PLANT ANNUALS – Add a pop of color around your mailbox, sidewalk, and perennial beds with annuals. Petunias, geraniums, coleus, dahlia, and zinnias are great choices in sun. For shade choose impatiens, begonias, and caladiums.
PLANT CONTAINERS, WINDOW BOXES & HANGING BASKETS – I incorporate a few perennials with my annuals in containers. Raid your perennial beds for coral bells, lamium, purple heart, and trailing ivies. Make sure your containers have a thrill (adds height, generally in the center of round containers or the back of window boxes), fill (the core plants found in the center) and spill (trailing vines to spill over the edge). Pair complimentary colored flowers e.g., blue and yellow or pink and purple, along with your greenery. Margarita sweet potato vine adds a nice lime pop of color as a trailing option.
PRUNE – Spring-flowering trees and shrubs, such as azalea, dogwood, forsythia and lilac, within four weeks after flowering.
PINCH -Pinch back your mums from the center to prevent them from getting leggy by the time they bloom.
DIVIDE – Divide or transplant hardy perennials, such as chrysanthemum, aster, hosta, and spring blooming bulbs.
DIE BACK – Many spring-blooming bulbs like daffodils utilize foliage to replenish each bulb’s food supply. Allow the foliage to die back without removing it until at least eight weeks after flowering.
PLANT: It’s time to plant! April is a great month to plant. Add trees, shrubs, evergreens and perennials. If you felt your spring display was scant, add blooming, potted bulb plants now. Most will return again next year, and pump up your spring garden. After the threat of frost has past, plant your annuals for instant color in containers and in your garden. I like annuals alongside my sidewalk and around my mailbox to supplement the perennials planted there.
PLANT VEGETABLES: Vegetable gardens have come back in vogue and many are seen in suburban neighborhoods today. Tomato plants are a staple that even a beginner gardener can plant and enjoy. Don’t have a yard? Try growing a tomato plant in a large container on your back deck in a sunny location.You can also plant cantaloupe, honeydew, cucumbers, summer squash and watermelon this month.
TRANSPLANT: Spring is the best time to transplant trees, shrubs, evergreens and perennials in the wrong place or in need of more room. Replant immediately at the same depth and keep watered.
DIVIDE AND MULTIPLY: Divide your bulbs and other perennials, preferably ones that flower after mid-June for optimum performance this year. Early spring blooms are best divided in early fall.
PRUNE: Prune early-spring flowering trees and shrubs right after they’re done blooming. Shear evergreen hedges and prune roses.
WEED, FEED & MULCH: Make up your beds by weeding, adding organic matter into the soil, and fertilizing. Cover with a 2-4″ mulch spread.
IRRIGATE: Check your irrigation system.Turn on irrigation system and let it run through each zone. Walk around each zone and check spray pattern, proper rotation of sprinkler heads, and coverage. Set controller for automatic watering. Replace the controller back-up battery if necessary.
Spring Arrives! March 20th
Last Frost Predicted April 4th
Clean Up: Continue clean-up of beds of dying foliage, sticks and leaves.
Cut Back: Now is the time to cut back ornamental grasses like liriope and mondo grass before new leaves emerge. Cut small plants by hand; for larger ones, use your lawn mower with the blade set at 2 ½ to 3 inches high. Most perennials can also be cut back now, including coreopsis, asters, phlox, black-eyed susans, and bee-balm. Do not cut back perennial salvia or ‘Miss Huff’ lantana (or other perennial lantana) until you see new, green growth sprouting.
Fertilize: This formula has remarkable results for all but your acid loving plants. Use equal parts of the following materials:
10-10-10 fertilizer
Sphagnum Peat Moss
Cottonseed Meal
Mix in a wheelbarrow. Sprinkle mixture around the base of all perennials and watch them grow!
For your acid loving plants (hydrangea, dogwood, rhododendron, azalea, holly, gardenia, etc.) I recommend Holly-Tone. Follow label instructions.
Camellia
Clean Up: Continue clean-up of beds of dying foliage, sticks and leaves.
Cut Back: Now is the time to cut back ornamental grasses like liriope and mondo grass before new leaves emerge. Cut small plants by hand; for larger ones, use your lawn mower with the blade set at 2 ½ to 3 inches high. Most perennials can also be cut back now, including coreopsis, asters, phlox, black-eyed Susans, and bee-balm. Do not cut back perennial salvia or ‘Miss Huff’ lantana (or other perennial lantana) until you see new, green growth sprouting. Prune hybrid tea roses and shrub roses in February. A good rule of thumb for rose pruning is always to cut back to an outward-facing bud. That means that the bud is on the side of a stem facing away from the center of the plant. When the bud sprouts, it will grow away from the center of the plant. This keeps air moving around and through a rose plant, which decreases the risk of black spot. Most climbing roses flower on old growth from the previous year, so do not prune those until after they flower.
Lawn: Apply a pre-emergence broadleaf herbicide. By being proactive now you’ll prevent weeds from invading come spring.
Vegetable Garden: Begin planting cool season vegetables outside in the garden. In mid to late February, you can plant lettuces, radishes, carrots, peas, and other cool-season vegetables directly into your garden. Plant carrots and radishes together. Carrots can take a while to sprout, and radishes keep the soil from crusting over. Use a lightweight potting soil or seed starting mix to cover lettuce seeds. These plants sprout most easily through this lightweight soil.
Start seeds: Warm-season annual flower and vegetable seeds can be started indoors. Tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, coleus, marigolds, salvia, zinnias, ageratum, and flowering tobacco need between 4-8 weeks to grow to the point where they can be transplanted outside. Use seed-starting mix to start your seeds. These are specially formulated mixes that are lighter in weight and better for newly emerging seeds. Keep the mix moist while the seeds are sprouting.
Sow: You can sow fragrant sweet peas now. They’ll begin germinating while it’s still cool, and you’ll have lots of flowers in the spring.
- CLEAN IT UP – Now’s the time to clean up and store your lawn mower and garden tools. If you’re like me, it might be a good time to organize your garage and tools and hang them up!
- RESEED – With the warm fall we’ve had, many flowers are still blooming. Many annual plants reseed (like Zinnia) if you don’t cut back the dying blooms. Allow the seeds to drop and you may experience a “come back” next year.
- REUSE – If you had a fall display that included bales of hay or pine straw, don’t throw them out, use them! Break the bales up and blanket your beds for the winter or use them in a manger scene.
- DECORATE – Holiday decorating easily extends to the garden. Fill your birdbaths or fountains with greenery and bright colored ornaments, use trimmings from your tree to decorate outdoor light fixtures and mailbox. Add lights to your trellis or gazebo’s, outdoor swings and of course, around your front porch.
- TREES—Rosemary trees (often found at home improvement stores this time of year) are a wonderful addition to your holiday décor. They make a fragrant and practical kitchen tree. Decorate with miniature baking items for fun. Water only when the soil is dry to the touch, brown needles indicate over-watering. In the spring you can plant it outdoors.
- LEAVES – Leaves are still falling at my house. Use your lawn mower to mulch the leaves on your lawn instead of trying to catch and bag them.
- HOUSE PLANTS- Continue to force bloom bulbs for floral displays and color during dreary winter days. Poinsettias are a popular indoor holiday plant that is found in grocery stores in reds, greens, and pinks.
Categories : Gardening Checklists
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