Coastal Landscaping & Garden Center

Seasonal Advice

Fall & Winter Gardening Tips:

For many of us, the growing season is winding down. We’re busy clearing and buttoning up our barren beds.

Then again, some gardeners cannot let go. They’re enjoying what they call the second season, the realm of fall-blooming perennials.

Given the normal progression to winter, these bright spots will bloom well into December. You cannot miss them.

They give me a feeling that, yes, winter is nearly here, but there’s always spring coming.

Fall bloomers thrive in chilly nights followed by warm, sunny days. They are said to love cool feet and hot heads. They produce incredibly sharp and deep colors, as if they know their role of chasing away the gray days.

The planting rules are the same for all of them:

-- Make sure you have good -- make that great -- soil with plenty of compost and humus. This will jump-start their growth rapidly, resulting in a better show.

-- Be sure to keep the plants watered until the soil freezes. Mulch them after the first freeze. Our falls are tending to be dry. These plants need a lot of water to support flower development.

-- Don’t over fertilize: Excessive nitrogen creates green leaves, not
flowers.

-- Pinch off spent blooms. This encourages new ones.

-- Buy from a reputable dealer: Most fall bloomers come in hardy and tender varieties. The tender ones are for growing indoors or in the South. Check the labels. They should be suitable for hardiness in zones 5 and 6.

Here are some good ones:

Mums are the most popular, sold by the thousands all over. They come in endless colors with large, medium and miniature blooms.

Asters look like daisies but last until winter arrives. Pinching spent flowers results in mounds of plants.

Sedum, a succulent, looks nice all year as a border plant, but the best is yet to come. In September, the plants suddenly sprout heads of color.

Eventually, the plant is covered, and you can hardly see the leaves.

I have a planting of Helianthus in my back yard and constantly am amazed. These look like yellow daisies, but they are on 5-foot stalks and bloom until the freeze. Some call them false sunflowers. Birds love their seeds.

The plants expand rapidly.

Helenium is similar to Helianthus, but is the choice if you have poor soil and drainage problems.

While not a flower, pampas grass offers an unusual fall display. It sends out red, silver or pink feathery plumes each fall just before the green plant starts turning to straw. These guys will last until March, when the straw should be cut to make way for the new grass. They keep well indoors as a dried flower.

The beauty of these is they are planted once and enjoyed for many years.

Check the Internet for more ideas on fall bloomers.

Have a gardening question? Send it to jim.hillibish@cantonrep.com.

author: Jim Hillibish

Summer Flowers: Gardening Tips for Summer

Summer is a time of beauty and abundance in the garden. It’s also a busy time for the gardener, full of chores that are necessary to care for and maintain the health of your plants. Listed below are some of the core tasks of the season to help you prioritize your workload.

Indoor garden
Early summer is the ideal time to plant containers, such as patio pots, window boxes, and hanging baskets. All threat of frost has surely passed along with the passing of spring, so you can safely put containers outside. Don’t forget to feed container-bound plants as the summer progresses.

Dead-heading
This is also listed as a spring chore, but you should continue to dead-head flowers that have passed throughout the summer (this increases bloom time and strengthens the plant). Pay special attention to dead-heading flowers that self-seed once they have passed so that you maintain control over where they spread in your garden. If you want to propagate certain plants, you can save the flower heads for planting at a later date.

Pest Patrol
Keep a close watch over your garden for any sign of pests so that you can move quickly and take action before the problem spreads out of control. On roses especially, keep an eye out for aphids and mildew. This is also a good time to reapply pepper wax or whatever you might be using to keep the deer, rabbits and other big pests away too.

Staking & Support
Put stakes and supports in place for tall, herbaceous plants, like peonies and delphiniums. This will prevent them from falling over or look messy as they grow taller and heavy with blooms with the progressing season. Likewise, as climbers display new growth, be sure to position them on a support system in order to maintain control over where they grow and prevent an untidy appearance.

Watering
Don’t forget to keep up with your watering, especially as the very hot weather sets in. If you don’t water enough, roots will stay near the surface, making them even more prone to the heat. An inch of water a week is a good rule of thumb, so don’t just spritz, water deeply to keep those roots digging deeper.

Plant Bulbs
Mid-summer is the time to plant bulbs that will bloom in the fall, such as colchicum. Wait for late summer to plant bulbs that will bloom in the spring.

Sow Annuals
Now that all threat of frost is gone, early summer is a perfect time to sow hardy annuals, such as lupines, outdoors in the garden. You can also sow biennials, such as forget-me-nots. These hardy plants are easy to grow outdoors from seed.

Vegetables
Time to get those tomatoes and other frost sensitive plants in the ground! Know the frost date for your area (check with your local extension service) and as soon as it’s safe, get things started. More time in the ground means bigger and quicker harvests.

Prune Shrubs
Although many shrubs do not require pruning, some shrubs that flower in the spring and early summer, such as lilacs, will greatly benefit from pruning once they have finished flowering. This keeps them looking lovely season after season. Refer to the appropriate page in the web site for pruning tips; a good rule of thumb is prune right after things bloom and you’re always safe from pruning off flower buds.

Of course, there is plenty more activity in the summer garden than the chores listed above, but this will give you a good indication of some of the essential activities that need to be tended to.

Be sure, of course, to take some time to sit back, relax, and enjoy the joys of summer in your garden…a cherished time of year for every gardener.

(www.helpfulgardner.com, 2007)

Spring To Do List

TO DO IN THE GARDEN IN APRIL:

Late March and early April are the best times to prune deciduous trees.
Cut back ornamental grasses and other winter standing perennials.
Clean leaf litter in garden beds.
Spread lime.
Apply dormant sprays to appropriate trees shrubs, and vines.
Sow seeds indoors.
When soil is workable test for acidity and nutrients.
At the end of the month it is usually warm enough to begin planting bare root trees and shrubs.
Visit your local garden center for inspiration.

TO DO IN THE GARDEN IN MAY:

Continue planting bare root trees and shrubs.
Divide late blooming perennials.
Direct sow cold tolerant seeds such as California poppies, lettuces, and members of the pea family.
Start indoors fast growing vegetable seedlings such as cucumbers (best if sowed in peat pots).
Later in month begin to harden off seedlings.
Work compost into garden beds.
Sprinkle slow release fertilizers to perennials, trees and shrubs.
Plant cold tolerant annuals such as pansies, osteospermum and stock.
Plant balled and burlaped trees and shrubs and container plants with established root systems.
Feed nesting birds.

TO DO IN THE GARDEN IN JUNE:

Sow wildflowers and all other seeds outdoors.
Purchase and plant annuals for containers and beds.
Continue to plant trees, shrubs and perennials. Water weekly deeply.
Weed asparagus and strawberry beds.
Set out remaining heat loving vegetable transplants such as tomatoes and peppers.
Fertilize lawns.
Divide and or transplant spring blooming perennials.
Label areas for planting more bulbs in the fall.
Feed roses.
Apply fungus control to prone plants such as fruit trees, roses, grapes, phlox and monarda (best to apply BEFORE fungus appears).
Apply slug control, particularly after rainy spells.