Lately, the heat has been insufferable. And it can be flat-out dangerous to be out during the peak sun hours. Yet our gardens keep growing! In this short essay, I'll discuss some lighter tasks that we can do to help keep our garden looking decent throughout the summer.
If you have a lot of annuals, which I do, deadheading the spent flowers can certainly enhance and lengthen their bloom time. Zinnias are a great example. This past May I seeded a wide variety of Zinnias throughout my garden. And after 2 months of prime bloom, they are now looking a bit bedraggled- all the heat and heavy rains have taken their toll!
Ideally, I should have been snipping off the old blooms (deadheading), but like so many of my "plans" and desires, I've not kept up with it. We must come to accept that we can't do everything, and that is okay. Just keep busy and keep doing something!
If you do decide to save seeds, like for instance Zinnias, I'd suggest allowing the flowers to naturally dry on the plant then clipping them into a paper bag and storing them in a dry place inside. While it is best to clean the seed, it's totally fine if you save the whole spent flower, chaff and all. There should be plenty of seed mixed in all that material, and next year just scratch or scatter the seed in a sunny spot.
Watering is kind of a given this time of year! Any of us who've gardened in hot climates know how quickly our containers dry out. But it is equally easy to overwater, especially in rainy periods and if our soils don't have good drainage. This can happen with any organic media if it has broken down too much. With all my containerized plantings, I tend to beef up the porosity of the media by adding a generous helping of perlite. I aim for a mixture of two-thirds potting soil with the remaining third as perlite.
Weeding is perhaps my least favorite task! Some of my gardening friends speak of weeding "zen", but I am so easily distracted I rarely accomplish what I set out to do. However, all my little weeding moments definitely add up over time.
But in rainy hot periods like we've been experiencing it's inevitable that the weed situation will get out of control. Every inch of bare earth will "blossom" with a seemingly endless supply of unwanted plants. However, sometimes you'll find a jewel amongst the stones- like a cool seedling of something you've really wanted to propagate! If I'm in a rush, I'll often accidentally pull up something great like a baby Spigelia or Clematis. Mulching can ease the weeding burden, but that too can be overdone! I reserve the mulch topic for a later blog post.
In conclusion, I'd urge you to still get outside when it's tolerable and savor the ever-changing nature within your yard. Look closely at all the butterflies and tiny winged insects fluttering about. Look at the sun-faded colors of the flowers transitioning to seed. Take photos and share and brag about them with your Facebook friends! If we want to make our world a more dynamic and colorful place, we need to grow things and share our gardens with others.
Yorumlar