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July Gardening Tips

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Landscaping Tips

  • Make sure your lawns get approximately 1 inch of water a week, either by rain or by sprinkler. Also most of your shrubs need to be deep watered every couple of weeks. Many established shrubs and trees can tough it out for a month or so but the unusually warm dry weather puts extra stress on most of our shrubs that have developed shallow root systems because of surface watering and the abundance of rainfall. July is usually the first of the drier months. Water carefully, slowly and deeply. Watch your sprinkler system carefully and turn it off if rain is expected. Conservation can provide enough water so we won’t have a total water moratorium.
  • Tidy annuals and perennials flowers before they go to seed. Trim hedges, keeping the base wider than the top. Cut back faded roses. Plant annuals for fall bloom (cosmos, etc.) Care for plants in pots; feed, cut back spent flowers and check drainage. Now and in August transplant iris. Trim perennials such as delphinium after bloom so you can get a fall bloom. Sow seeds for biennial plants such as forget-me-not, foxglove and viola.

Vegetable Garden

Harvest young zucchini, carrots and beans while tender. Pick and dry herbs. Dig shallots and garlic when tops brown. When crops have been harvested, sow successive crops of bush beans, beets, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, chard, collards, kale, kohlrabi, leaf, lettuce, mustard, onions, peas, radishes, rutabaga, spinach and turnip. You can start fall and winter crops this month.

Child's Garden

Pick, shell and nibble peas, eat raw beans. Make a toothpick doll with a hollyhock skirt. Visit a U-Pick farm to gather summer berries and make jam together or just enjoy the available fresh fruit.