If you already have your flowers, now is the time to make plans for keeping them happy and beautiful all summer long:
- Establish a routine daily watering schedule. Early in the day is best, but early evening is OK as well. Consider investing in a professional water wand or water nozzle. It will help make this job a little easier. We would be lost without them in the greenhouse.
- Establish a regular schedule to fertilize your flowers through the summer to double your flower power. Use Jack’s Petunia Feed throughout the summer or switch over to Jack’s Blossom Booster in mid-July. One tablespoon every 2 weeks. Mark it on your calendar and stay on schedule for the best results.
- Don’t be afraid to get out a sharp pair of garden shears and trim up the petunias, callies and verbena as necessary. No need to worry about dead-heading petunias. All the new varieties of petunias are sterile and will produce flowers all season long. Let the old flowers dry up and the wind will blow them off.
- If you have not fertilized your perennials yet, it is not too late. Consider incorporating the granular Fertilome Tree and Shrub food into the soil around each plant. Or apply Jack’s All-Purpose fertilizer mixed with water from your watering can or hose end applicator.
- As perennials in the garden grow, get tall and sometimes lean or topple to the side, use a support hoop to prop them up. This will keep them from leaning on each other and hold them tall for the best show. Keep several small and large sizes available in the garden shed so they are handy to use when you need them. Simple and easy to use, these really help keeping your perennial beds looking great! A new trellis might be just the thing to support vines and trailing perennials.
- You know that saying, “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago”. But the next best time is right now! As long as you water regularly, now is a good time to plant a tree and the Creek Side selection is terrific. Many 8’ tall trees to choose from for planting, including 20’ ornamental trees to 50’ shade trees especially suited for our Colorado climate.
- When planting perennials, shrubs and trees, dig the hole 1/2 to twice the diameter of the container, incorporate Nature’s Yield Organic Compost into the soil that is used to pack around the root ball and water thoroughly. Make sure the water is penetrating the soil to the root ball and not just running off to the side.
- Apply the second step of the Fertilome 4 Step program to your lawn now, which is your Weed N Feed. If you have not purchased the program, Creek Side has single bags of Fertilome lawn fertilizer available.
- Apply Fertilome Weed Out broadleaf weed killer to your lawn with an easy to use hose-end sprayer. Apply Fertilome Killz-All to the weeds showing up in the concrete driveway and sidewalk cracks.
- Keep an eye open for insect pests on your flowers. Aphids on branch tips. Holes in the leaf are from slugs or loopers. Check with our Green Team for a treatment recommendation.