Blog- late July 2024

Maintenance for July and August Gardens

July and August are the months in Richmond when your garden starts to look burnt up, perennials flop and flowering plants have less blooms.

Hot temperatures, and rains that last all week can really take a toll on the beauty of the garden. If we leave on vacation and have no one to check the garden or pots, it’s possible you also have a few dead plants and holes in the landscape. If a plant is dead, pull it out. If you are not sure, cut it way back and hope for leaves to pop in the cooler temperatures.

Tasks to keep the garden healthy and beautiful are:

Weeding

Weeds compete for nutrients and water. If you can get outside in the morning, you won’t have to suffer quite so much removing weeds. Use a trowel, a sharp almost razor hoe or your hands after a good rain.Try to get the roots of the weed out when you pull or dig.

Check for weeds underneath spreading foliage or weeds within the plant. Look for different types of Leaves to see which is the weed. Remember that there is a plant intelligence and weeds try to disguise themselves to look like the perennials around them.

Water

Water carefully and where it’s really needed. This is where mulch can be helpful. It retains water. People think mulch is to keep out weeds. Weeds usually fall from above on top of mulch, so while mulch may keep some weeds from coming up from below, mulch does not deter weeds from rooting on top. Lots of weeds fall from the birds or wind.

Dead headflowers

Dead heading entails cutting off the flower heads when they fade. Cutdown on the stem to where you see another flower forming. If you can’t see flowers forming just cut a bit lower on the stem near where a leaf joins the stem.

Cut black blooms on lavender now. This helps them not get leggy in coming months.

Catmint, yarrow, coneflower and salvias will re-bloom if you cut the blooms and some foliage. Cutting back foliage especially the catmint definitely gives you another flush of blooms. You can use pruners or a tool called an elegital kana hoe (see photo ).

For pollinators like coneflower, verbena bonarnesis and gallardia, you may want to leave the dead blooms on the plant for birds and butterflies to eat the seeds.

Butterfly on perennials

Pinch back mums to get the fall blooms and cut back fall blooming asters.

You can start dividing iris.

Fertilize roses, annuals in pots and vines at only half strength that you did in spring. You don’t want to push them to bloom in August with high temperatures, but you do want to give them some help for blooming in the fall.

Roses

Dead head roses, cut the blooms off down to a stem that aims outward. Go ahead and fertilize rose with an organic granular mix or the blue fertilizer that you mix in a bucket of water. September and October are the prettiest months for roses in Richmond so you want to give them a little food for that flush of flowers.

Staking flopping perennials is another good task to do so you can see flowers on the end of the stem as they are propped. Staking also helps taller flowers from smashing other flowers.

You can use bamboo stakes or taller plastic, wooden or metal stakes for your 5 foot high perennials. There are also gorgeous metal stakes shown below that I’m sure the Brits use!

Pull to the plant stem to stake to the stem and tied to the stake. Do not push the stem up against the stake. Use a twine or velcro ribbon so you don’t strangle the stem. You may need more than one stake for larger perennials.

Practice taking the good, the bad and the ugly. Autumn weather is just around the corner.

Christie lives in Manakin Sabot , Virginia where she manages a 3 acre garden. Her blogs are written from her 35 years as a personal and professional gardener.