July Lawn And Garden Tips

July 10, 2010

theresafriday.jpgTiming is the key to success in your lawn and garden. And in this weekly feature, Teresa Friday, the Residential Horticulture Extension Agent for Santa Rosa County, offers an assortment of July lawn and garden tips.

Flowers

  • Plant heat-tolerant annuals such as: celosia, coleus, crossandra, impatiens, kalanchoe, nicotiana, ornamental pepper, portulaca, salvia, and vinca.
  • Lightly re-fertilize to enhance color and vigor.
  • Deadhead, or pinch off, spent flowers to stimulate more flowering.
  • Pinch back leggy growth.
  • Check roses for black spot fungus and apply a fungicide if necessary.
  • Mulch beds to 3-inches deep to help control weeds.
  • Monitor weekly for insect or disease problems.
  • Increase air circulation between plants. This helps prevent formation of fungal diseases such as leaf and stem blights.

Trees and Shrubs

  • Crape myrtles are blooming, so it’s an excellent time to select them for your landscape. Choose cultivars with the appropriate mature size for your site.
  • Deadhead crape myrtles to extend bloom time.
  • Check azaleas for the large, black azalea defoliator caterpillars. Control by hand picking or use an approved insecticide.
  • Watch for spider mites on shrubs and flowers; lacebugs on azaleas and pyracantha; flower thrips on roses, gardenias and other blooming plants; and oleander caterpillars on oleanders.
  • Prune hydrangeas and gardenias when flowering stops.
  • Do not heavily prune any of the spring flowering shrubs such as azaleas, camellias or spiraea.
  • Give trees a pre-hurricane check. Look for limbs that might snap and trunks that could split. Prune immediately.
  • Psocids (tree cattle) create the white webbing covering the branches and trunks of some trees. They feed on surface debris and do not injury the trees.

Fruits and Nuts

  • Prune blueberry bushes after harvest is completed.

Vegetable Garden

  • Plant eggplant, lima beans, okra, southern peas, peppers and watermelon.
  • Remove spring-planted tomato plants from the garden once harvesting is complete.
  • Burn or remove diseased plants from your property. Don’t place them in the compost pile.
  • Set out new tomato plants by late July. Try the “hot set” varieties.
  • Control tomato hornworm and fruitworms.
  • Establish a compost pile; high temperatures and frequent showers speed the breakdown process.
  • Solarize the soil to reduce nematode population in the vegetable garden. Remove old plant debris, till the area thoroughly, moisten well and cover with clear plastic film. Seal the edges with soil. Leave the cover on for 6 weeks.

Lawns

  • Monitor for sod webworms, spittlebugs, chinch bugs, caterpillars and mole crickets.
  • Use a soap drench to irritate insect pests into moving, making them easier to see. Mix 1 ½ oz of liquid dishwashing soap and 2 gal of water in a sprinkling can, then equally distribute the solution in over a 2 X 2 foot area.
  • To reduce stress on the lawn: mow before it is too high, keep mower blades sharp and raise the mowing height by ½ inch when the weather is hot.

Contact your local Extension Office for detailed instructions on these recommendations.

Comments

2 Responses to “July Lawn And Garden Tips”

  1. BAJ on July 12th, 2010 6:16 pm

    I love this section, I use a tiny bit of beer in bottle cap for slugs and I love to have some spiders and lots of lady bugs.. Sooo good for the yard

  2. Terri Sanders on July 12th, 2010 3:24 pm

    William,next to the weather forecast,I love this feature best…..it will help me with planting my fall garden.Thanks

Written by William Reynolds · Filed Under FEATURE TOP STORY, Features, News