Smart Tips to Minimize Midsummer Garden Chores
Lebanon, PA (PRWEB) July 10, 2013 -- Summer is high season in the garden, time to enjoy the results of spring labors. But to keep a garden running smoothly there are some simple tasks that still need doing in midsummer. Here are some smart tips from the experts at preen.com to help make light work of routine midsummer garden chores.
• Before August 1st, prune spring-blooming shrubs such as lilac, viburnum, and forsythia. Pruning these shrubs later in the season removes next year’s flowers. To prune, remove old stems to the base or to where a young shoot is emerging. Control size by careful and selective pruning, not just buzzing them over with a hedge trimmer.
• Group pots and containers to make them easier to water and groom. As a bonus, grouped plantings give a better show.
• Trim annuals now. Cutting back lanky plants tidies things up and also gives blooms a boost.
• Turn pots weekly giving plants good light exposure on all sides. This encourages them to grow evenly.
• Stop new weeds while they’re seeds, before they start growing. Now is the time to apply Preen weed preventer to stop late season weed seeds from germinating. If you applied preventer in spring, it’s time to replenish. If you didn’t, it’s never too late to start.
• Harvest vegetables. The more you harvest vegetables like beans, squash and cucumbers the more veggies you’ll reap. Water vegetables with about 1-inch of water a week in rainfall or from a hose. To stop weeds from growing in the vegetable garden try Preen’s organic weed preventer. It’s 100 percent corn gluten and safe to use around vegetables even up to harvest.
• Deadhead perennials by removing spent flowers. This encourages many perennials such as salvia, coneflower, bee balm, and coreopsis to rebloom in late summer.
• Cut back early blooming columbine, lady's mantle, and hardy geraniums to the ground now. This tidies up plants that by now look floppy and encourages these garden workhorses to develop new leaves, forming tidy, green mounds for the remaining season.
• Reward yourself with a deserved bouquet of fresh cut flowers and a salad picked from your beautiful, now easier to maintain garden.
Sally Ferguson, Ferguson Caras LLC, http://www.studio-shed.com, 802-325-3200, [email protected]
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