The three essentials for healthy plants, especially in the summer
There goes Mother Nature again: instant summer heat in early June. What happened to spring? Is this normal for the Front Range?
“Ha!,” say Colorado gardeners. “Why not bring on seventy-milean-hour winds, too?”
Oh. She did that a week ago. Coloradans accept the weather challenges and will go forth and garden remarkably. We want ripe tomatoes by August and flowers aplenty on the Fourth of July picnic table.
Remarkable gardening in our climate is simple when you get
down to the most important must-dos. Plants have some of the basic needs we have: water, sunscreen and nutrients.
Water
Water your plants — which include lawns, vegetables, annuals and perennials — deeply, not frequently, so roots grow down into the soil. Shallow, daily watering keeps the roots near the soil surface, making them a bit lazy. Early morning, coffee in hand, is an ideal time to water. Focus the hose spray or watering can at the base of plants to avoid splashing water on foliage, which can lead to fungal issues later in the season.
Water lawns anytime through the night and early morning. Containergrowing plants may need daily watering in high temperatures. The smaller the container, the quicker the soil dries out. Poke your finger down a couple of inches; if dry, water. Or lift the container. If it’s light and liftable, it’s dry; douse it good.
Watering rules differ with drought-tolerant, well-established perennials (many are West- and Colorado-native plants) that can perform very well with less water and frequency. The short list includes warm-season lawns of buffalo grass, blue grama and dog tuff; and yarrow, catmint, iceplant, penstemon, prairie wine cup, cactus and many more. Well-established, drought-tolerant plants don’t mean plants you put in last week or last month; those may need a year or two to grow strong, deep roots.
Sunscreen
Mulch is sunscreen protection for your plants. It keeps the soil from cracking and drying out in between watering. Weeds are kept down and soil roots are kept cooler. Plus, a layer of mulch a couple of inches deep prevents soil and water from splashing up to the plant foliage.
My mulch preference for vegetables is chemical-free grass clippings (free from mowing) and/or chopped up dry leaves (left over from last fall). Some years, I use newspapers, two to three thin layers or so around the plants, then cover with clippings, chopped leaves or a mix of both. The newspaper breaks down over the summer, adding valuable organic matter back to the soil.
Weed-free straw works well, too, and I hear good things about biodegradable weed fabric, which also doubles as mulch. Be sure to renew the clippings as needed through the growing season, and avoid letting it pack down too densely to prevent water from passing through. I am not a fan of plastic sheeting as mulch except early in the season to warm the beds before planting. The exception is high-altitude, short-season gardening.
Many gardeners use shredded bark or nugget mulches for ornamental plantings and decorative pea gravel for rock gardens, which are all good. Weed barrier fabric below mulch is common. It works for a few months or maybe a year; but in time weeds blow in and take aggressive hold in the fabric, making them more difficult to remove. Plus, adding new plants is difficult when trying to cut through the fabric, and when removed the soil left in place is dismal, hardpacked and lacks life.
Nutrients
Plants may need a boost of plant food nutrients in the form of fertilizers or compost (also called soil amendments), through the growing season depending on the plant’s needs for growth, bloom or fruiting. This topic is an entire primer on its own relating to soil type (clay versus sandy), and what the soil fertility actually is, or has become over the years. If you are adding soil products year after year, your soil can be out of balance. Too much, too little?
Learning more about your soil makeup and fertility levels will help determine its growing potential. A soil test is recommended before the growing season or in the fall after the growing season, which can help with next year’s garden preparation. I test my soil every five to six years to see how well I’m managing it and what to add or not.
General rules of thumb: Lawns benefit from fertilizer two to four times a growing season (avoid applying during hot temperatures). Fertilize vegetables early in the growing season, then mid-season before fruiting. Ornamental annuals can be fertilized with diluted half-strength liquid products or granular type fertilizers spread over the top of the soil two to three times a month. Containergrown plants need fertilizers more often, every third or fourth watering or so. Use diluted amounts to avoid overdoing it.