YOU MIGHT THINK summer is almost over, with August only 8 days away.
Far from being over, our perfect flower and vegetable time is not even half over, so your chores and plantings have yet to be completed.
Also, this time of year, clippings, pruning, stripping and deadheading should be filling wheelbarrows on their way to the ever-growing pile of compost.
The mid-mid of any season is a hectic time. The gardener should have one trowel deeply in this season, one trowel preparing for next season and writing in a notebook for improvements next year.
Let’s start with the first trowel. The next few weeks will set up your garden for late August and September. That’s the time of year your yard should be at its zenith.
The weather conditions (cooler and dew laden) are ideal, planters are at their maturity.
This means that this coming week, we must all become plant butchers.
First, get out in the perennial garden and start your deep cut-back. All those plants that have bloomed — deadhead them. Then comes the wheelbarrow.
Pull off all large leaves, pull off all dead leaves, pull off all leaves that look poor, then rake up the area and cultivate.
This process should remove all weeds around the area, along with sticks and stones.
Blooming shrubs.
Now let us take that wheelbarrow to the blooming shrubs. All blooming bushes and shrubs that have flowered should be deadheaded, dead-wooded, then de-suckered, shape-pruned and, in the case of plants that are over the window sill, cut down.
This is the last time of year to do this job and still get strong vegetative growth for this year. A later summer cut will, in many cases, remove next year’s flower buds, so again, now is the time.
Okay, dump the wheelbarrow and let’s move on to your annuals.
I know this is going to be very difficult, we are going to remove massive blooms and leaves, leaving in some cases only short stubs.
Annuals are just that — annuals. They are geared to bloom heavily for one season, produce seed and die. Now we’re going to use this evolutionary response against them.
It should be right now that your flowers and plants have never looked better or had more blooms. It is this fact that will cause many of you not to fill this next wheelbarrow.
I know it’s hard, but we are plant butchers this week.
Petunias, hack them down to 50 to 70 percent, cutting away lots of their bloom. This stops them from turning brown and stringy in August.
Zinnias, marigolds — go harvest cut flowers. Cut these plants back roughly a third. This stops that slow, interior die out that happens in August.
As for lobelia, cut them back 50 percent, which, in essence, is every bloom. Lobelia is a cool tolerant plant, and a severe cut back now makes for October plants better than the ones your scissors are on now.
Heavy seeders.
Salvia, celosia, ageratum and cosmos — these guys all like a deep pinch. Remove the primary flower head and several leaf sets. These plants are heavy seeders and that entire bloom tip with leaves should hit the compost pile.
Coleus should have their blooms removed before they become woody, hardened plants.
Snapdragons should have their bloom stalks removed down to only a few inches from ground level.
In short, do not let annuals finish their reproduction cycle. By removing their blooms and cutting back the plants severely, one greatly disturbs the natural cycle. Since we are only in the middle of their growing period, they reboot and come back with greater vigor.
So now, go dump this wheelbarrow, pick up some fertilizer to cultivate and apply around these ravaged plants, then let the sprinkler fly for a few days (deep soak).
Now one more stop for the wheelbarrow, containers, pots, boxes and flower baskets.
Remove all dead leaves, flowers and stems. Pinch the tip (causes side branches) of each plant and that may be a couple hundred shoots. Then cut off a branch here and there to shape or give room to a crowded plant.
Fertilize with water the containers with both granular and foliar feeds.
With all this vegetative mass now removed from your yard, we next turn to the other trowel.
One must make the decision of this season, whereas an open spot could take a pot of sunflowers, (this season) or you could plant gladiola bulbs (next season — early September bloom) and Dusty Miller (both seasons) for a great combo look. Either choice, make a choice. Mid is that cycle of decision in action.
Much of the summer yard is at peak or soon will be fading, so plug the holes.
Also many plants take time to mature, sowing sweet peas in the next few weeks gives you spectacular September/October flowers and grandmother-type charm.
Sowing those same seeds in the early fall gives you foliage to die in a freeze.
Mid-mid of a season works extremely well for bridging and making smooth transitions to the next season, so this week think fall perennials, fall leaf color, dahlias, Dusty Millers, alyssum, roses, gladiolus, fuchsia or even hollies, asters and mums.
Busy time.
The next week, plant these sought out gems. You’ll have a busy time cutting this, pulling that, planting for mid- and late-summer, digging holes for fall plants and lots of hard work.
But stop every now and then, stand up, look around and see what a great job this is in such a fantastic place.
And please … stay well all!
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Andrew May is a freelance writer and ornamental horticulturist who dreams of having Clallam and Jefferson counties nationally recognized as “Flower Peninsula USA.” Send him questions c/o Peninsula Daily News, P.O. Box 1330, Port Angeles, WA 98362, or email news@peninsuladailynews.com (subject line: Andrew May).
