TulsaPeople / June 2010 / Put a petal to the metal

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Put a petal to the metal

Follow our month-by-month summer planner for a beautiful garden year-round.

It happens every year: the usual springtime buying frenzy at the garden center.

Too often when you plant this horticultural extravaganza, the result is a hodgepodge of color and form. Not to mention a lot of physical and emotional stress on the body — and not a very attractive garden, says Brenniss O’Neill, a local landscape designer.

She and Barry Fugatt, horticultural director of the Tulsa Garden Center, offer some advice to keep cool as a cucumber and still have the most primo posies on the block.

Be kind to yourself, these experts say. One suggestion is to use kneepads or a square of old carpet to protect delicate joints.

“Next you need to ask what kind of garden you want,” O’Neill says.

Too many objects as focal points can confuse the eye. O’Neill suggests that gardeners distill into one theme.

The two experts agree that a clever way to bring order plus beauty to your landscape is the use of pots. They can be any size or material.

What’s important is that the pots are all the same color. O’Neill’s favorites are yellow and blue. But feel free to select your own special hue.

With this plan, each pot becomes a miniature garden. A favorite combo is midnight blue salvia, asparagus fern and a favorite annual in pale yellow. A single crape myrtle, perhaps with some greenery draping over the side, makes a statement.

What’s more, the pots are a moveable garden feast. Move the containers on the patio, frequently in groupings; on garden paths; or in the garden itself, where color and structure are lacking.

Pot planting is almost disaster-proof. If one pot is looking puny, trash the contents. Look for plants that can hack the sizzling summer months, Fugatt says. Besides, the reward is less hard work and cheaper than tackling the whole plot.

For other garden designs, O’Neill likes to pull the garden together with a border, including the veggie plot. Her favorite material is white begonia, or ever-blooming daylily.

“It creates a recurring structure,” she says.

For the final touch, add some butterfly houses to welcome winged friends to your little piece of paradise. They are available at garden shops.

MONTHLY PLANNER

“June, July and August — the most beautiful time of year. When nature is dressed in her summery best,” as the song goes.

And your own landscape can be the microcenter of all of this, but it takes getting dirty and down on your hands and knees to make it happen. Here are some month-by-month garden tasks to make it a reality.

June

Summer is just beginning, so take care of a few chores before the heat really sets in.

Toss out the old. There’s nothing more pathetic-looking than a pansy plant in mid-June when the weather really warms up. Yank ’em. (After all, they’ve provided dependable duty since last fall and deserve a final resting place in the compost pile.) Replace with heatproof miniature zinnias.

Prune spring shrubs. Early June is last call for pruning spring-blooming shrubs such as azaleas, quince and forsythia. These shrubs are beginning to make next spring’s blooms. Wait too late to trim and you cut them off.

Trim the roses. Hybrid tea roses should be trimmed by now. The rule-of-thumb is that a heavy cutback will produce fewer but larger (show-quality) flowers; a light trim means more but smaller blooms. To prevent the fungus black spot, spray regularly with a fungicide.

Provide butterfly bait. Another showy bloomer is the buddleia. It’s not horticulturally nicknamed the “butterfly bush” for nothing because the winged beauties flock to it. For stocky stems and lots of flowers, it’s best trimmed back by a third.

Keep deadheading. This lopping of spent flowers encourages more blooms and keeps the plant tidy looking.

Cut back mums. Established mums can be even more spectacular this fall if you cut the plants back by one-third now to produce better-looking bushes and more flowers.

Prepare for the hummers. Ruby-throated hummingbirds are scoping your garden for colorful flowers that produce tasty nectar. If your garden lacks blooms, hang feeders, but keep them clean to prevent bacterial infection. You don’t need a commercial mixture; use a simple combo of four parts water to one part plain white sugar. If your feeder has the tiniest bit of red on it, don’t add food coloring. It’s bad for the birds.

July

Time to buy a new broad-brimmed garden hat. The weather is getting sweltering and seriously sunny. Bare-headed or a ball cap, bill front ways or back, simply won’t do.

Trim annuals. If annuals, such as petunias and begonias, start to look leggy, give them a haircut. The shorter plants will soon provide stockier new branches for better-shaped plants.

Keep mulching. It’s backbreaking work, but the secret to taking a garden through the dog days: Never, never mulch over dry soil.

Add some heat-loving zinnias. Most garden centers now sell zinnias already grown. But nothing could be easier than planting them from seed — plus, you get a bigger variety. July, particularly Independence Day, is the traditional time to sow this quick-growing heat lover.

Get glad — gladiolas, that is. If you love gladiolas, it’s time for a final planting.

Pinch fall-blooming mums. For chrysanthemums with glorious blooms, keep pinching out the tip.

Continue rose care. For roses, in addition to spraying for black spot, remember the underside of the leaf; hand pick off damaged leaves and destroy.

August

August, with its three-digit temperatures, nasty humidity and seemingly army of bugs and fungus attacking your greenies, brings out the true and tough gardener.

Water, water, water. But do it the correct way. Morning watering is best. Less water is lost to evaporation. Mid-day soaking can burn leaves and waste water through evaporation. Evening and night watering are not good because plants go to bed wet, which encourages fungal diseases.

Know your tree. Watering at the trunk of the tree does little good. The roots that do absorb moisture are the small ones just under the canopy of the tree.

Make the most of your herb garden. Don’t let plants, particularly basil, bloom. Start collecting sprigs to dry for winter use.

Give roses extra care now. Cut out dead growth, some old canes and under-producing canes. The reason: The bush needs lots of air circulation. Your reward: a grand display in October.