Number one August tip is to sit back, relax and enjoy your summer garden in all its glory! Invite friends and neighbors over to show off and celebrate all your hard work! You deserve it!
If you can’t sit back and relax…there is plenty to do….
Consider seeding a fall crop of lettuce, spinach, Swiss chard, beets, peas etc. Basil and cilantro may also be sown now as there is still enough time for them to mature.
Keep dead-heading flowers and harvesting ripe vegetables! This will encourage the plants to continue producing flowers and fruit all summer.
Gather herbs and flowers for drying.
Prune summer flowering shrubs as flowers fade. It may be too late to prune spring flowering shrubs as you may remove next year’s flower buds. Remove any dead or diseased branches.
Keep up with your regular fertilizer applications and consider switching to a half-strength or Blossom Booster formulation.
Brown patches in your lawn are probably the result of lack of water in those spots. Your sprinkler head may not be operating properly resulting in poor water distribution which is magnified with the long stretches of hot weather we have been experiencing. Check your sprinkler heads to find out what is going on.
Got Bugs? Now is the time that pest and/ or disease problems are showing up. Keep an eye open for insects on the tips of branches or flower buds, or signs of chewing on the leaves or flowers.
Put your thumb on the end of your hose and blast them off as an initial remedy.
Japanese beetles arrived a little later this year, but arrived none the less. Pick them off your flowers and drop in s dish of soapy water. Keep the full scoop on their life cycle and how to control them HERE.
Now is the time to treat for Budworm again. These little light green worms have two cycles per summer – early July and early August. Budworms prefer to feed on petunia, geranium and verbena plants. They feed on the flower buds of these species. You might notice that there are less and less flowers, flowers that looked chewed upon, or little black worm droppings in the leaves. Treat with the biological Natural Guard Caterpillar Killer with BT (Bacillus thurengiensis), available in ready to use spray or dust or spray with Bonide Eight. Treat now to help keep these flowers in full bloom all summer long. Budworms are HERE
Also, spots on the leaves could be the sign of a fungal disease, or it could be an environmental issue. It is important to match the correct pest control strategy with the pest problem. Water early in the day so that foliage is dry going into the night. Powdery mildew is showing up on roses, lilacs, squashes. Read More Here
Snap a photo or bring in a sample to the garden center to review with one of our Green Team experts. We offer a full range of solutions to help you solve your gardening problems.
August perennials are rich with color! Look at your perennial gardens at home. Then come to Creek Side and select the plants with flowers that your garden is missing this time of the year. Think about Rudbeckia Black-Eyed Susan, Gaillardia Blanket Flower, Garden Phlox, Aster Daisy, Agastache Hyssop, Helenium Sneezeweed, Hardy Hibiscus and ornamental grasses as additions to your garden to help keep it looking colorful all season long!
Still time to plant trees, shrubs and perennials for that landscape project you have been thinking about. Check out our selection! Fresh crop of shrubs and very nice trees ready to go including potentilla, barberry, spirea, hydrangea, perennial hibiscus, butterfly bush, dogwood and xeric selections like Apache plume.
