Had enough yet? I went to the Adirondack Mountains in New
York for a week, and highly recommend becoming very wealthy so you can spend a
whole summer up there. However I love Tennessee and our beautiful Springs and Winters. I love coming home to
see my sunflowers in bloom and the beautyberry bush starting to put out fruit.
It was still hot when I came home, so my garden “TO-DO” list
is pretty short and is headed up by:
1. Stay inside in the air conditioning after 1 PM. (Remember that I work outdoors, in gardens, so, by 1 pm I have been outdoors for 6 or more hours.)
2. Don’t prune heavily on most plants during heat/drought
stress.
Light trimming of
these will be alright: yews, privet, hollies, and Knockout roses. But don’t prune
hard on most shrubs; removing a lot of foliage will cause further dehydration.
3. Fertilize thoughtfully.
Shrub roses: don’t fertilize your shrub or knockout or hybrid
roses after about August 15. A flush of nitrogen-induced growth can create
tender new leaves that can be stressed by early hard frosts. Our typical first
frost date is Oct. 15, so 6-8 weeks is a safe window. Same thing for nitrogen
fertilizer of many evergreen shrubs (privet, boxwood, yew, holly); don’t
fertilize after August 15th. Wait until winter when the shrubs have
gone into dormancy.
Fertilizing shrubs: It
is alright to fertilize lightly with a slow release and/or organic fertilizer
after dormancy begins. During dormancy (winter) the plant is primarily active
in its root system, not the foliage, so phosphates are appropriate. From late
October through January, applications of
an organic or slow release fertilizer on shrubs is fine, especially a phosphate
fertilizer.
* How do you know if you’ve watered enough? With a
sprinkler, set out a tuna can, run your sprinkler, start a timer or watch your
clock. When the can is full that’s the amount of time you need to run your
sprinkler . Every 3 or 4 days. In the morning. Not at night. Not in the hot
afternoon.
With a soaker hose system, place the tuna can under a
section of hose, measure again as above. You can remove the tuna can once you
know your time measurement.
5. Don’t worry about leaf drop with your trees.
It’s typical in August to see a bunch of leaves, especially
hackberry leaves, on your lawn and driveway. Don’t run out and look for something to spray or
inoculate. Don’t do extra watering. In
August there is quite a bit of NORMAL leaf drop. Especially hack berries, and tulip poplars, redbuds, and
river birch. This is normal leaf drop in August for ‘sustained growth’ trees.
The tree is not abnormally stressed.
Also, some trees will drop twigs and these are some likely
causes: 2011 cicada damage, and squirrel
twig chewing or twig girdler damage. None of these conditions require
treatment. Maybe just some lawn mowing. (Again thanks to David Cook for the
recent informative diagnostic lecture.)
6. Plan your fall. Again in the air conditioning, with the
Olympics on TV in the background, plan for fall activities such as applying a pre-emergent herbicide, garden cleanup, and
doing fall fertilizing.
7. Continue deadheading (or ‘debudding’) your repeat
bloomers : Echinacea, brown eyed susan,
roses, zinnias, dahlias, catmint, even Salvia
8. Control mildew diseases with liquid copper or a stronger fungicide. Garden phlox is still prone to
powdery mildew with the high humidity.
9. Control unwanted vines and weedy brush with hard pruning and glyhosphate
applied to the cut end.
10. Do a soil test. First because you really can benefit from learning about the pH levels of your soil. It's easy and cost $7 plus your time to take it to the soil/plant/pest lab at Ellington Ag Center. http://soilplantandpest.utk.edu/soil/index.htm
