Nine July Tips and Planning for the Fall

Plan your fall vegetable garden. Start your fall tomato garden in the first half of July. Plant pumpkins and gourds. Plant peppers in mid-July.

Mulch, Mulch, Mulch your beds with shredded or chipped bark mulch; preferably without artificial color. Water your plants and keep them watered regularly during the summer heat.

Trim bushes lightly to shape them. However, be sure to have a light touch. Roses can be trimmed back now by one-third to one-half so they will rejuvenate for the fall season.

Similarly, trim spent flower stalks on perennials. For example, today I took all brown leaves and stalks from my day lilies to clean them up. Dead head (remove) spent flower heads and seed pods on annuals and crepe myrtles as well to encourage more blooms.

Learn and understand your city's water regulations. Water deeply when you water your lawn. Shallow watering creates shallow roots with poor heat tolerance or stamina.

Fertilize container plants regularly; every other watering. Use a product called SOIL MOIST to enhance the water retention in the soil for container plants and save on your water bill.

Continue to mow your lawn to maintain healthy growth. Do not fertilize in the peak hot months; hold off fertilizing now until the end of August.

For weeds in beds of ground cover where you cannot use Roundup because it will kill the ground cover plants: Apply pre-emergent lightly now and again in September and March.

Disease Control: manage the black spot, powdery mildew and other fungal diseases with Neem oil, horticultural oil or potassium bicarbonate.

Visit a local nursery for a free training class in a topic you have a passion for and stay cool in the summer heat.