Its Summer! What to do, what to do.

It seems like it’s been summer since about April 1. June was unusually warm, July was downright brutal, and now we have August which is normally our hottest and driest month of the year in Nashville.

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 15^th. 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.

  4. Watering

Moist, even, watering of shrubs, perennial flowers, and lawns. An average rainfall for continued plant health is one inch per week.* The soil stores a lot of water for a long time. Middle Tennessee was in an unusual drought for most of the summer. We are almost up to normal rainfall levels now, after the July rains.  Let the soil dry out just a little between watering, a couple of days. Most plants don’t like ‘wet feet’, as it leads to fungal diseases in the roots.

* 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