July brings the first long-awaited opportunities to sit back, in your porch rocker or lawn chair, and enjoy your garden’s rewards in beauty and flowers. With most chores completed, you may now concentrate on maintenance and watering.
Enough emphasis cannot be placed on watering as much of the progress or failure of your garden depends on it. Get in the habit of taking the nozzle off your hose so the watering can deep and penetrating. A simple rule to remember is: water thoroughly or not at all.
Continue your battle against bugs and blights on your roses. Insecticidial soap or Neem Oil will take care of rose bugs and Japanese beetles, and sulphur dust or a fungicide will protect against black spot and mildew.
Speaking of mildew the flowering period of phlox begins this month. Blooming plants with mildew-free foliage should be the pride of every late Summer perennial border. Continue with your sulphur sprays started earlier; if you overlooked this need, it. is better to start now rather than not at all.
Make room for a crape-myrtle, Lagerstroemia indica, in your garden if you are lucky enough to live where it is hardy. Enormous, rose flower panicles appear in the late Summer. Of easy culture, crape-myrtle does well as far north as Baltimore, and though it will survive as far north as New York City, it suffers from Winter injury or fails to bloom because of insufficient Summer heat. Variety elba is white.
For continuous bloom, keep the faded flower clusters of polyantha and floribunda roses cut off. Canes of rambler roses which have just flowered should also be cut to the ground. Food will then be directed to the present season’s canes which are to flower next year.
This is the time to sow delphinium and hollyhock seeds as soon as they are ripe. Seeds of biennials – foxglove, sweet William, forget-me-not, canterbury bells, English daisy, mullein and evening primroses – should also be started during the next two months.
Seeds of beets, turnips, string beans, lettuce, Chinese cabbage and carrots may be still sown. Late celery, cauliflower and cabbage plants may also be set out.
If your dahlia tips wilt, stem borers are most likely to blame. Cut off and burn affected portions, and spray or dust plants with rotenone.
Your house plants are probably enjoying their Summer vacation in the garden or porch. Water them with liquid fertilizer biweekly, and their response will be amazing. Cuttings for next Winter may be started during this month – geranium, begonia, coleus, philodendron, patient plant, ivy, and the like.
Cut off delphinium flower heads after blooming and permit plants to rest for a few weeks before watering and fertilizing for a second flower crop. Stalks should be cut at the base after they turn yellow and show signs of withering.
Tall perennials – phlox, asters, liatris, hibiscus, plume poppy, etc. – should be staked before they begin to bend over. There are many inexpensive supports on the market designed to be neat, durable and inconspicuous.
Wisteria pruning should be tended by cutting back the long, season’s shoots to three or four eyes. This promotes the development of small, flowering spurs. Vines will also appreciate an application of well-rotted manure.
If your growing season permits, gladiolus may still be planted for late flowers. A complete fertilizer should be mixed with the soil.
Watch out for Japanese beetle grubs in the lawn – they need to be controlled.
