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Echter’s Plant Doctors are available
during store hours seven days a week to answer
your gardening questions. For
accurate diagnosis, it helps to bring in a sample.
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Flowers Gardens
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"Dead-head" (pinch off the spent blooms) on perennials, annuals and
roses for longer flowering periods
and more and larger blooms.
Continue fertilizing annuals and perennials as instructed on your
favorite fertilizer. This will give you continued flowering all season long.
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- Cut flowers for bouquets early in the morning and place the stems
immediately into a bucket of water to keep them fresh until you are
able to arrange them.
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Perennials & Roses
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Continue to fertilize
roses throughout the summer to produce nice big and beautiful flowers.
Roses are heavy feeders. Follow the instructions on the fertilizer of
your choice and water at the base of the plant. August is the last
time that roses should be fertilized, however. Roses should then start
to “harden off” for winter.
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Plant fall-blooming perennials like asters, mums, agastache and Autumn Joy sedum
for color August through October.
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Prevent rose and perennial diseases like powdery mildew from taking hold by
using a systemic fungicide before the problem appears. Once those diseases
appear it is very difficult to control. Bee balm, phlox, columbines and lilacs
are some of the plants prone to
powdery mildew.
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Remove
old, spent
rose blooms after they fade, cutting the stem just above the uppermost
5-leaflet node on the stem.
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Look
for empty spaces in your garden where you could plant some bulbs this fall between
perennials to add more color to next spring's
show. Our fall bulbs usually arrive around Labor Day weekend.
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Vegetable Gardens
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Pinch off the flower buds of
onions to direct energy to the developing bulb.
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Remove vegetable plants
that have finished producing. If they are free of insects and disease,
compost
the plants; otherwise dispose of them so they don't infect your
other plants.
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Fertilize your
vegetable gardens to maximize your harvest. Fertilize strawberry
beds with ammonium sulfate now for more berries next spring.
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Vegetables will stay
fresher if you harvest them from the garden early in the day. Clean them as quickly
as possible
and refrigerate (except tomatoes which should not be refrigerated for
best flavor).
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Harvest corn when the husk is tight over the ear
and the silks are dried to a dark brown.
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Lawn Care
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Those
impossible weeds like bindweed, dandelions and thistle in your lawn can
be controlled with
Ferti-lome's Weed Free Zone.
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- Do you have dry
spots in your lawn where water won’t penetrate? A lawn irrigator will put
the water right
at the roots and aerate those areas so that water will
percolate down. Revive helps water to soak
into the ground before it runs off of slopes. It also helps water to
penetrate deeper into the soil.
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- It is best to avoid fast-release nitrogen fertilizer on your
lawns in the heat of the summer. If your did not make the second
application of fertilizer in June, our recommendation is Green Thumb Lawn Food for summertime feeding of your lawn.
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Trees & Shrubs
- Deep watering of
trees, shrubs, roses, vines and perennials is essential this time of year. Water thoroughly, but only when the plants require water. Check soil
3-4 inches deep to determine when these plants need to be watered.
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Examine all trees, shrubs, roses, perennials and annuals for insects and
diseases. This is the time of year these problems begin.
There are controls for any of these situations.