Gardening tips for July
The weather has been pretty darned hot the past week or so. Today as I write this it is very nice. Finally the heat broke. I’m a little late getting this out. Have been out watering two and three times a day here to make sure all the plants look good. And thanks to the hard work of all our people the plants look really nice.
The biggest thing to do this month is water. When the weather is hot it is time to step up the watering. Increase time on timers to give plants good deep soakings.
Some signs to look for that show not enough water are wilting in the heat that does not recover when the weather cools for the evening. If water is not increased when you see this the next thing will be leaves dropping and flowers dropping before the blooms are spent. The next thing is edges of leaves will turn brown and then die back on branches. If you see any of these signs increase the water to the plant.
If a plant is stressed due to lack of water or other reasons, use Superthrive. Mix 1 to 3 caps of superthrive with 5 gallons of water and soak the plant. This will help the plant to recover. Also a good idea to use it when transplanting of plants during warm weather. We use it on all planting here at the nursery. We start most of our 1 and 5 gallon shrubs during the summer since it is when we have the time and we have excellent success using Superthrive when planting.
When planting during the warmer weather we highly recommend that you use Superthrive when you transplant. As I said above, we use it on all planting here at the nursery during bare root season and during hot weather and have very good success even in the hottest weather.
If you are unsure of how much water to give you plants, let us know. We have a sheet available at the nursery which shows how much water per week is required by trees during each month of the year. It can be used for shrubs as well by reducing down for the size of the plant. Basically, don’t be worried about overwatering during the summer when it is so hot. Unless the plant is soggy it is okay. It is best to soak long and deep about 2 to 3 times a week rather than short watering every day. This produces a much healthier plant that withstands the heat much better. Rmember that drip systems are rated for gallons per hour not gallons per minute. So if you have a 1 gallon per hour dripper on your plant and you run the system 15 minutes you are giving the plant a quart of water.
Mulching is an excellent way to reduce the amount of water you have to apply. It will keep the moisture in the soil rather than allowing it to evaporate. Lay mulch 2 inches deep around your trees and shrubs. When putting it around your trees, keep the mulch back away from the trunk by about 3 inches.
If you did not get the fertilizing done in June do it soon. Make sure it is cooler days and always water well the day before fertilizing. Then fertilize and water it in well.
We are going through the nursery and cleaning up and we are putting items in the reduced price area of the parking lot. These include one of a kind, not so pretty, too many, etc. Check the area when you come in. These items are always marked way down. These items are all sold as is. First come first serve. Sorry, no reservations, no guarantees, no refunds or exchanges on reduced priced items.
We also will have fruit available for tasting throughout the month of July as it becomes ripe. We mention what is available on our facebook page, so if you are on facebook, like us there and you can find out what fruit is available for sampling. All that we put out for sampling are varieties that we sell during bare root season. So if you taste it and like it, you can plant the variety in January when we get our bare root fruit trees in.
Recycle your used nursery pots. We will gladly take your used nursery pots. Rather than throwing them out, you can drop them off at the nursery anytime. Even if we are closed they can be left by the gate on either side of the road. We reuse the pots so they don’t wind up in the landfill.
Hope we see you soon.
Jeff
