Time to remove old blooms from your roses
Not sure if summer is a time of year or just a temperature. However, when it becomes summer, we do not even want to go outside, let alone work in the garden. For the most part gardening turns more into just maintenance, mainly watering and pest control.
For the rose grower, it is time to remove old blooms. Removing the spent flowers will increase the next bloom cycle. On hybrid teas, floribunda and grandiflora roses remove the flowers at least to just above the first leaf that has five leaflets. If you prefer longer-stemmed roses, cut just above the second or third fiveleaflet-leaf. I fertilize my roses only lightly — once a month if they look OK. No need to try to force your roses to grow or make flowers. It is just too hot for them now.
Use a complete fertilizer. That is a fertilizer that contains nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. A slow-release fertilizer is also great for the summer. If the leaves are yellow and the veins are slightly green, your roses need some iron. Buy some iron chelate or miracle grow at the nursery to control the iron deficiency. These fertilizers require weekly fertilizing until you have green leaves.
After your plant’s flowers fade it is time to remove the flower stalks, unless you want fruit or seeds from the flowers. This can include iris and daylilies. If your daffodil, tulip and hyacinth plants are still alive it is best to remove any flower but let the plant’s leaves die on their own.
If you still insist on having a lawn. Then increase the mowing height of your lawn. The taller you mow your lawn, the less water it requires. This is due to a couple factors. The taller the grass, the deeper the roots; the deeper the roots, the more water the soil can hold for your lawn. The second factor is when the grass is taller, the more the leaves shade the soil, reducing the soil temperature. The lower soil temperature, the less water your lawn requires.
When temperatures rise over 95 degrees, most of our warm-season vegetables slow down on producing flowers. It is to try to cool down the vegetable garden. First, cool the soil by placing four to six inches of mulch on top of the garden soil. Be sure not to place the mulch next to the stems of the plants. Placing mulch up to the stems of the vegetables can suffocate the plants or it can allow disease and insect pests an easy entrance into the plant. Placing the mulch on the soil will cool the soil and help cool the plant.
This can also be just as important for your landscape plants. Make sure that you use a “cooling” mulch like straw (for the garden), compost or decorative bark for either your garden or landscape. By applying two to three inches of organic mulch to your garden or landscape planters, you can help your plants. The mulch can help prevent weeds, it prevents water loss, it keeps the soil cool, it prevents reflected heat that sunburns many plants and best of all it improves the structure of the soil.
Even if you applied mulch, last year, some of the mulch has decomposed into the ground, so you should add another inch of mulch this year.
Decorative rock is also a type of mulch and can help prevent weeds and reduce water loss. If the rock is dark-colored, it prevents reflected sunlight. However, it can increase the soil temperature, which can stress plants. If the rock is light-colored, there is an increased chance of causing sunburn on your plants, but the soil stays cooler.
No matter if you use organic or rock mulch, do not place plastic down first. The plastic lasts only about a year then deteriorates and comes through the mulch. Your landscape then looks unsightly, and it is almost impossible to remove the plastic.
The last tip for hot weather gardening is do not spray any pesticide if the temperatures are over 85 degrees. When temperatures become hot, the water evaporates out of the pesticide too quickly and this can burn the plants. Or some pesticides just cook your plants like meen oil or insecticidal soap. So spray early in the morning or evening, when the wind is not blowing and the temperatures are cool.