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freshen up annuals, finish garden edges

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freshen up annuals, finish garden edges

Paul Cappiello
| Yew Dell Botanical Gardens

I spent most of my elementary school years as a runner ― a decidedly mediocre runner. Not fast enough for sprints and not long enough for distance, my race was the mile.

It’s a pretty simple race, strategically speaking. The first quarter mile is about pace and position, while the second is about judgment – ​​who’s got it and who’s not, on this particular day. The last quarter mile is easy – just go as hard as you can, for as long as you can, and hope for the best.

But the third quarter mile… that’s the hardest. The third quarter requires focus, concentration and discipline. A little inattention in the third quarter can ruin a great first half and destroy your hopes for glory in the last quarter.

The third quarter mile race is in many ways like July in the garden.

By this time of year, much of our spring gardening efforts are all but over. The previously weed-free beds are looking a little shaggy. The annuals are showing a few yellow patches here and there. And with heat indices hovering around 90 degrees or worse, it’s hard to convince ourselves to do anything about it ― at least not for very long.

But just like the mile, the third quarter can make all the difference in the garden. Investing in a well-planned and strategic effort can make all the difference for the rest of the season. And it doesn’t have to mean struggling for hours in the midday heat.

Here are my top five tips for freshening up your garden in the middle of summer.

Renew your annuals mid-summer

By this time of year, even the most strategically planned annual plantings can start to look a little worn. A bit of sloppy growth here and there, a hint of yellowing in the leaves, we’ve all seen it. Whether it’s a bed of coleus or a pot of petunias, a good pruning (half to a third) followed by a dose of mineral fertilizer can do wonders.

Now some may object to my recommendation of mineral fertilizers over the more politically correct and relatively slow-release compost or compost tea feeding regime. But remember that the plants we choose to put on those huge blooms all summer long ― that’s not what most plants do very well. To do what we ask of them, they generally need more feeding than a tree or woody shrub, to do their thing. They need nutrients and they need them now ― not in a few weeks or months.

Refresh the edges of your garden beds in the summer

There is little in this world that makes a garden stand out like a freshly mown edge. They look so beautiful in the spring, when the ground is soft and the grass is fresh. But come July, those edges of the bed start to look less like a clean edge and more like a suggestion for a walk. A quarter of an hour with a nice sharp spade, preferably early in the morning when it is nice and cool, can make a world of difference.

Refresh the water in your water feature

Whether it’s a still bowl to reflect a bit of sunlight or a delicately babbling fountain in the garden, by this time of year the algae has outgrown the algaecide and the water is starting to look like pea soup. And if you’ve been prepping your water bowl/fountain with those lovely mosquito dumps (safe for birds but very effective at killing mosquito larvae in the water), they’ve probably seen better days and need re-inoculating.

In about 10 minutes total, you will rinse the algae away, refill the bowl, and throw in a new mosquito dump. And as a bonus, once you have completed this small task, you can enjoy that water for the rest of the season.

Mid-summer is the time to prune your hedges

We’re not talking about a little snip of a broken or diseased branch here and there. And we’re not talking about cutting a few sprigs of rosemary to use in the garden. But I usually recommend that you finish all major hedge pruning for the season by mid-July.

While it might make more sense to wait until a nice, cool September morning, that’s about the last thing you want to do with your hedges. Heavy pruning/clipping encourages dormant buds to open and produce new growth. If you do that heavy pruning too late in the season, you’re encouraging plants to produce lots of tender new growth that won’t have enough time to mature before the cold weather of winter sets in. Trim those hedges now and you’ll give that new growth plenty of time to prepare for winter.

Make your plant and garden plan for next year in the middle of summer

Finally, this is the time to explore the garden and look for the things that just weren’t working ― and plan solutions for next season. Sometimes things work better in our hopeful minds than they do in the ground. If you tried something new and it didn’t work out, this is the time to brainstorm a different solution for next year. After all, that’s what we call gardening.

And the beauty of it is that if your garden isn’t too big, you can explore all of this from the comfort of your air-conditioned living room!

Paul Cappiello is director of Yew Dell Botanical Gardens, 6220 Old Lagrange Road, yewdellgardens.org.

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