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Tulsa Gardens Now!

July 2010

July is here and it is tempting to try to figure out if it will be a typical hot and dry Tulsa July or more like last year’s mild one. Still, summer gardening is more about keeping things looking good and managing the water than it is about heavy work. A bit of deadheading, a bit of tying up exuberant growth, some light weeding, all are the usual tasks of summer.

At the Linnaeus Teaching Garden we are all enjoying the more relaxing pace of summer after the heavy gardening of spring. Deadheading isn’t really all that hard AND doesn’t take all that much time if you do a little planning.

Borrow some of our ideas to ease your summer work. Divide your gardens into sections; sections should be of a size you can finish in about 30 minutes. Take one section a day until you have worked the entire garden. Getting the plants on a schedule of once a week removal of spent blooms actually makes the task much easier, and it lets you feel satisfied that you have completed the work, rather than feeling overwhelmed with what lies ahead.

• With garden shears or kitchen shears along with a pair of hand pruners you should be able to cut any bloom stem you encounter. It is also nice to have a container of some kind that you can carry with you into the garden thus allowing less traffic in and out of the flower beds to throw away the spent blossoms.
• Continue weeding and adding organic mulch to flowers beds where it has become thin. Do not mulch up to perennial crowns. Apply mulch to within several inches of the crown. This helps keep soil cool and holds in moisture.
• Spider mites and thrips are in the garden now. To help deter these insects spray those plants that seem to attract these pests with a strong spray of water but not so hard as to injure plants but simply to wash off these pests. Spray the undersides of leaves especially.
• Some perennials have grown into their neighbor’s space. They should be lightly pruned to keep them in bounds and to help with air circulation. Some plants included in this group are: Artemisia, Baptisia, Achillea cultivars, Amsonia, and others.

July Garden Maintenance:

This is the month that Mums should be cut back to shape them and to keep them in a compact form without delaying blooms. Any later pruning than this month can cause bloom delay later this fall.

Salvia leucantha can be cut back hard this month to control height. Hummingbirds and butterflies are attracted to this plant and it will bloom up until frost. Too bad it isn’t a perennial. It’s a great plant for containers or the back of the border.

Zinnias (plants or seeds) and large blooming marigolds do well when planted in the garden now. They love the heat, and are less likely to develop mildew when planted now.

Daylilies need deadheading quite a lot during the next couple of months to keep the spent blooms from setting seed. Setting seeds prevents continued blooming. If time is short, do not worry about removing individual blossoms each day; concentrate on once a week removal of bloom stems that have finished blooming. This keeps the plants looking so much more attractive in the garden. Of course strolling around the garden with a cup of coffee and nipping off the spent blooms can be one of the more leisurely moments of a summer morning.

Remove blossom ends from other Lily varieties (bulbs). You can deadhead the spent blooms just below the flowering head, leaving all of the leafy part intact. This tidies up the plant and prevents seed pods from developing. This will ensure that all the plant's growth energy will go toward making a big, healthy bulb for next season. Later on the foliage will begin to yellow and at that time it will be okay to remove it at the soil level. Be sure to mark the bulbs with golf tees or colored aquarium gravel to signify that there is something planted there.

Remove the spent blossoms of the hellebores; they are now lying on the ground and in some cases covering up the new seedlings that sprouted back in the spring. Cut them back to the base of the stem.

Coreopsis verticillata cultivars may need shearing back. If they look straggly and have finished blooming this month or in August, they will benefit from a shearing and a liquid feeding to regenerate growth and more blooming.

Deadhead Scabiosa varieties now or next month especially if 80% is out of bloom. Apply organic fertilizer to encourage secondary bloom up until frost.

Deadhead campanula cultivars such as C. Cherry Bells. They can have a small secondary bloom.

Remove old bloom stems of Crinum bulbs.

Some hosta varieties have finished blooming. Remove old bloom stems for a more attractive plant.

Deadhead Cannas to keep them in bloom. Remove tattered foliage, water well during dry spells.

Deadhead Saxifrage stolonifera.

Prepare Your Fall Gardening:

As we move into the heart of summer in July, it may seem strange to start preparation for a fall garden, but then gardening is all about looking to the future. And fall is one of the most rewarding times of year in which to grow vegetables. The weather moderates enough to be pleasant for the gardener, and is within the optimum temperature range for most crops. With our late first frost dates, there is plenty of time for the crops to mature, and the cool season crops will often carry on well into the winter with only minimal protection.

If fall and winter vegetable gardening interest you, now is the time to start your preparations. An excellent source of information on growing vegetables in Oklahoma is the OSU website. Fact sheet HLA-6004 is an excellent general vegetable gardening guide, and Fact sheet HLA-6009 gives very specific information on fall gardening.

Useful Fall Gardening Tips:

• Seeds and plants- Seeds left over from spring are fine. Otherwise prepare your seed order quickly and get that order in as soon as possible.
• Prepare the garden plot- If you have an existing garden plot, it is probably already growing some vegetables that are not yet ready for harvest and removal. Work around those to clean up areas that can be seeded. If you need to open up a new bed, start by killing off the existing vegetation, and begin preparing the soil.
• Carrots, parsnips, pole beans, limas, cowpeas, corn and cilantro can all be seeded in place as soon as the beds are ready.