“A garden requires patient labor and attention. Plants do not grow merely to satisfy ambitions or to fulfill good intentions. They thrive because someone expended effort on them.”
– Liberty Hyde Bailey
By mid-summer, I often lose some of my ambition for the garden and yardwork. (Especially during this heatwave!) This quote from Liberty Hyde Bailey reminds me that the plants need my attention in order to thrive. Mr. Bailey was the Dean of Agriculture at Cornell University. During his lifetime, he advocated for rural reform, and launched the Cooperative Extension System as a way to get the University’s research out to those who could implement it.
Since I’m not so enthusiastic now as I was in May, I have a short list of yard work for mid-summer.
- Water! Don’t let your plants get dehydrated in the sun! Container gardens especially tend to dry out in the sunshine.
- Check your irrigation system. Turn on the zones and walk the system looking for leaks, breaks or misaligned spray heads. One of the biggest mistakes is assuming the irrigation system is working fine.
- Remove the spent blossoms (deadhead) your flowers, both the annuals in containers and the perennial flowers in the yard. Not sure what to cut off? Check this blog post from a couple of years ago.
- Fertilize your container gardens and your vegetable garden. See this newsletter post from last year for more information about fertilizers.
- Plan for your landscape installation or other landscape refresh. I offer landscape design services for the do-it-yourself homeowner. I also offer design consultation and coaching on an hourly basis. Send me an email or call or text me at (970)988-3808 to schedule.
Procrastinate this: - Rarely is any yard work such an emergency that it needs to be done in the heat of the day. When the temperature is over 90 degrees, that’s a good time to procrastinate! I try to work outside in the early morning and evenings only.
- Unless you absolutely have to, don’t transplant or relocate plants during this heat wave. If it is really required, be sure to water the plant extra and consider ways to shade the plant while it recovers.
