We are officially in our Summer Season in Texas. Here are helpful (and timely) tips for gardening this week.
PLANT
• COLOR! Crape myrtles, while plants are in full bloom in your favorite nursery.
• New lawngrasses, but be prepared to water the new turf morning and evening for about 5 minutes each time. Continue on for a week then cut it back gradually.
• ADD Color that stands up to the heat: Trailing Lantanas, angelonias, Moss Rose, Hybrid Purslane, Cora periwinkles plus more.
PRUNE
• Annuals such as Copper Plants, Coleus and Begonias.
FERTILIZE
• Trees, shrubs, groundcovers and annuals with high-nitrogen or all-nitrogen fertilizer to promote sustained growth and vigor through rest of growing season. It’s best to do it now rather than in several weeks once it’s been really hot and possibly dry for a prolonged period.
• Bermuda with high-nitrogen fertilizer that has half or more of that nitrogen in slow-release form, but avoid applications of nitrogen to St. Augustine until September to lessen chance of gray leaf spot outbreaks.
• Iron-deficient plants (yellowed leaves with dark green veins, most prominent on newest growth first) can be treated with iron additive with sulfur soil acidifier to help reduce alkalinity of soil.
Do you love birds and bees?
Choose plants that attract them to your garden.
• Bees Native flowering plants including r early summer wildflowers – Gaillardias, Monardas and Coneflowers.
• Hummingbirds seek nectar from deeply throated, tubular flowers. Madame Galen Trumpetcreeper, Gold Star Esperanza, Flame Anisacanthus, and Pentas.