Summer Garden Maintenance Tips

/in , /by

Summer is peak season in our landscapes!  Gardeners and plants alike are working hard.  Get the most from your efforts and help your perennials, shrubs and trees do their best.  Follow these tips for a lush, healthy, productive landscape through the summer and beyond.

Watering

Appropriate watering is critical to keeping plants growing and healthy.  It is also important to consider our natural resources, and water as little as we can get away with while keeping our plants healthy.  The best way to do this is to not water too early.  When we water a lot at the beginning of summer we “train” our plants to be lush.  Then, when the real heat and drought stress of summer sets in, our plants have a hard-to-sustain amount of foliage.  We are forced to water like crazy to help them sustain this growth.  Cultivate more resilient plantings by being conservative with supplemental water during May and June.

To really understand how much to water, it helps to know the needs of each plant as well as what kind of soil you have.  In general, it is best to water deeply and less often, versus frequent and shallow.  Watering slowly/at a low rate, and for a longer duration of time, ensures the water soaks deeply through the root zone.  This helps roots establish in the soil horizons that stay moist and cool.  In contrast, short shallow waterings encourage plants to root only in the top few inches of soil.  This is the layer that is first to dry out in the heat of the sun.  So set the hose on a trickle, place it at the crown of your plant, set a timer for 30 minutes to a few hours depending on the size and type of plant, and address other garden tasks while your plants get a nourishing deep drink.

Established gardens need less water than new plantings.  In established beds, hopefully you can get away with watering just every couple of weeks or once per month during the summer.  Of course, this depends on what types of plants you are growing.  Not all plants are drought tolerant.  Support these plants with less-frequent deep soakings to keep them going. 

New plantings will need watering to help them through the hot dry months of summer.  In general, perennials take 1 – 2 (rainy, wet) winters to really establish in the garden.  Shrubs need 2 – 3 winters, and trees need 3 – 5.  Any plants in your garden that are younger than this will need extra water to get established.  In an ecologically ideal gardening world, we would be choosing drought-tolerant plants that fit our summer-dry climate.  But even these plants need help to get established.  Once established, it is possible to have a low-water or water-free garden!

Sandy soils do not hold water well.  Gardeners with sandy soils will need to water more often, and for shorter duration since the water will run through.  Help sandy soils hold water by adding organic material.  Compost or Soil Building Conditioner is great for this. 

Clay soils retain water, but it can hard to get the water to penetrate.  Slow and steady is best here.  Long trickle soaks are best.  A slow steady trickle allows the water to permeate the clay and soak in, rather than running off.  Add lots of organic material as well as calcium carbonate lime to help clay soils break up/form soil aggregates.  As with sandy soils, compost or Soil Building Conditioner is great for this.

Feeding

In general, spring is the best time to fertilize.  The exception to this is flowering annuals and veggies.  It is good to feed these plants through the summer to keep the production – of blooms and fruits – coming.  A liquid bloom-booster fertilizer is great.  I like to give dilute amounts with each watering (according to package instructions).  With any plant you plan to overwinter, it is best to stop fertilizing by early August to allow plants to harden off.

Weeding

It is always important to stay on top of weeding!  Eliminating weeds means that your desired plants get all the water and soil fertility resources for themselves.  Removing weeds before they set seed means fewer weeds next year! 

My three most favorite weeding tools are a hori-hori (a Japanese weeding knife), a spading fork, and a triangle hoe weeder.  The hori-hori is great for digging out tap-rooted weeds.  Spading forks are indispensable for colonizing plants like Buttercup and Sorrel that propagate from root pieces.  A fork will loosen the soil without cutting the roots, enabling you to remove the whole root mass while leaving little root system behind to propagate.  The sharp triangle hoe weeder is great for slicing annual weed seedlings off just below the soil surface.  You can also use the long point for jabbing out root masses of older more established weeds.

Mulching

Keeping soils covered with an organic mulch such as soil building conditioner or compost or woodchips is a great way to help retain soil moisture and suppress weeds.  For more information about mulching, and which products are a good fit, watch this video!

Deadheading

Keep the blooms coming all summer – deadhead!   Flowers are the reproductive organ of a plant; their job is to attract pollinators and create seeds.  Once this job is through, the plant will direct its energy to ripening the seed.  If it is flowers you want, remove fading blooms to encourage your plant to continue to bloom.  This is especially important for the flowering annuals we use for big show, like Geraniums and Petunias, etc.  But it still holds true for perennials and shrubs.

Harvesting

Like deadheading, keep harvesting all your summer veggies to keep more coming.  Remove the fruit at its peak, before the seeds inside ripen, and your plant will be signaled to keep going. 

Summer pruning

Growth vigor of trees and shrubs winds down in July and August.  This can be a great time to lightly prune plants that are prone to a vigorous, suckering response.  Trees such as Magnolia, Plum, Cherry, Apple, Crabapple, Japanese Maples, Dogwoods, Styrax (this is the short list; there are others) benefit from being thinned and shaped in summer even more than in winter.

Disease control & Insect management

Unlike gardeners, plants can’t go jump in a lake, or retreat to the hammock with a cool beverage when summer just gets to be too much.  All the hard work of summer can be hard on a plant.  This can leave them vulnerable to insects, fungus and other random ailments.  Keeping your plants mulched and watered (and fertilized if needed) is the best way to prevent issues, but sometimes help is needed.  Organic controls are always my first line of defense.  Insecticidal soap is great for most soft-bodied insect infestations such as aphids and leafhoppers and whitefly.  Sluggo is an iron-based slug repellant that is safe for cats, dogs and birds.  Organocide, a sodium bicarbonate-based spray, is great for Anthracnose, Black Spot, Powdery Mildew and other diseases.  These low-toxicity options are a great place to start.  Treat at the first sign of disease.

Plants, Shrubs, and Trees for Whidbey Island’s Heavy Clay Soils

/in /by

Hard-packed clay soils are a challenge. Clay is a common occurrence in Whidbey Island landscapes, and it poses unending challenges to local gardeners. Clay soils become mucky and wet in winter rains, then hard as concrete in summer drought. The wet winter clay mud can drown plant roots, whereas the bone-dry summer clay is difficult to penetrate with a garden hose.

Many landowners work to improve their clay soils with berms, drainage systems, and soil additives. Some Whidbey gardeners build raised beds, filling them with amended soil. (Here at Venture Out Nursery, we carry an excellent soil conditioner product from Gardner & Bloome that can be mixed into existing clay to help aerate and improve drainage.)

Fortunately, there’s an even easier method to dealing with clay: choose plants that thrive in it. Here are a few of our favorite plants that grow well in clay soils.

Clay-Tolerant Perennials

Blooming perennials for sunny clay spots include Bee Balm, Camas and Calla Lilies, Cardinal Flower, Ligularia, and Butterfly Weed. Siberian Iris, especially, are known for their ability to thrive in both drought and standing water.

Ostrich Fern is a great choice for a shady area.

Clay-Tolerant Grasses

Miscanthus Sinensis and Panicum Virgatum are two perennial grasses that can grow in clay.

Clay-Tolerant Shrubs

Red Twig Dogwood, Serviceberry, and Snowberry are all clay-tolerant native shrubs.

Clay-Tolerant Trees

Trees for clay soils are Gingko and River Birch. Gingko has the added benefit of thriving in coastal conditions. (For more plants that love the coast, check out our previous blog post: Plants for Whidbey’s Coastal Bluffs.)

Feel free to contact us at Venture Out Plant Nursery for further information! We love finding just the right plants for your unique landscape.

Written by Olivia Round.

Amending Soil

/in /by

Soil is the key to plant growth. Turning poor soil into healthy soil can be tedious, but your garden will benefit from the effort. Here are some tips on making better soil conditions for your plants.

Adjusting Your Soil pH – If your soil pH is off, we recommend adjusting it. If your soil pH is low, we suggest adding garden lime to raise the levels. If your soil pH is high, we recommend adding sulfur to lower the levels. Please add the lime or sulfur in stages so you don’t shock your plants. Adjusting pH can be a bit hazardous to an entire area, we suggest adjusting it only for specific plants at first. Also, adding acid (lime) to the soil is especially dangerous, so we suggest starting off by adding coffee grounds around the base of a plant, or acid-loving fertilizer to specific plants, like Rhododendrons and Blueberries. We would offer the same advice for using lime chips.

Adding Nutrients – Adding nutrients to your soil can be as simple as adding fertilizer. Synthetic or organic fertilizer can be added to amend your soil. Synthetic fertilizer contains minerals and chemicals and acts quickly. Organic fertilizers aren’t a quick fix. They release nutrients more slowly, over a period of time. Let’s talk about slow-release vs. quick-release fertilizers. Slow-release fertilizer is temperature dependent and slowly releases into the soil over several weeks, which will never burn your plant; whereas fast-release fertilizers are an immediate solution, but they could burn the plant if the wrong quantity is applied. A fertilizer bag also mentions NPK. N is Nitrogen – which is for producing new tissues. This especially helps produce foliage. But if too much Nitrogen is available, then the plant will produce more foliage than fruit or flowers, and it will have difficulty taking up other important nutrients. P is Phosphorous – which is mostly used for root growth. It’s also used by the plant to help set flower buds. K is Potassium – which is for overall plant health and disease resistance.

Organic Material – Blood meal and bone meal can also be used to amend soil. Blood meal can be used to add Nitrogen to the soil and bone meal can be used to add Phosphorous. Bark also adds organic matter to the soil, which will increase drainage and moisture retention. Partially composted bark is especially good for clay soils, which need extra drainage.

Compost – Manure is a cheaper form of fertilizer, but it will take more time to amend. Adding compost, which includes manure, to your soil can increase soil texture and nutrients. Compost is considered a soil conditioner because of the soil improvements it can make. Improved soil texture and nutrients enable plants to retain moisture, air, and nutrients. Compost helps improve all soil types.

Grass Clippings and Leaves – Grass clippings and leaves contain the Phosphorous, Nitrogen, and Potassium that will enrich your soil. Grass clippings can increase the amount of water your soil can retain. Fresh and dried grass clippings can be used in different instances. Fresh grass clippings are Nitrogen boosting and dried grass clippings are Carbon boosting. Dried leaves are also Carbon boosting.

Providing your plants with rich and nutritious soil amendments will help ensure you can enjoy strong, healthy plants for years to come. If you have any questions, please come by the Nursery. We’re here to help!

 

For details about some of the soil amendment and mulch products we carry and how to use them check out this video with Tobey Nelson!