It is hot! And it’s only going to get hotter! So for this newsletter (June/July combined), let’s talk about 3 things:
- Keeping your plants alive
- Planning for fall planting
- Creating an outdoor oasis for you
- Keeping your plants alive
Planting season is over! If you have recently created a new flower bed, it is time to automate your water. Be sure you have a sprinkler and/or soaker hose on an automated timer. If you have just planted a few weeks ago, you’ll need to water daily for a few weeks; but if you planted earlier this spring, you’ll want to water less frequently. Even though it may be tempting to water every day in the summer, it’s best if you water 2x a week for 40 min at a time if your plants have been in the ground for a month or more. Go for long and deep watering. This will encourage your new plants to root down rather than out. Your plants, even established ones, might wilt mid-day. This is ok. As long as they perk up again in the evenings and are happy in the mornings. Remember: long and deep. 2x a week for at least 40 min per time. Eventually move to 1x a week for an hour. But not until your bed is fully established.
When will it be fully established? Think of it like this: your first year, that bed is a baby. You have to really watch it, water it, weed it. Like babies, it’s work. But it’s not forever. Your second year, think of your garden bed as a teenager. You will still want to water and weed (weed every 3-4 weeks), but the plants should have grown and are therefore stronger. By year 3, your garden is an adult. By that time, the plants have likely established. In the summer, water 1x a week for an hour. Weed 4 times a year: April, May/June, July/Aug, Sept/Oct, if needed. If by year 3, you are weeding more often than 4 times a year, you need more plants :)
- Planning for fall planting
What if you missed the Spring 2025 planting window? While you can technically plant a bed at any time of year, you’ll have to work a lot harder if you plant in the summer, and a lot of plants might die anyway. However, you will not necessarily need to wait until April 2026 to get the garden of your dreams! You can plant this year in October…IF you start planning NOW.
First, order your bulbs. You need to order them now, because they run out of stock. The bulbs will not arrive until it’s time to plant them. With bulbs, I recommend you get a lot of late winter, early spring bulbs. Check out Breck’s, Brent and Becky’s, and Van Engelen. I like to get the super sacs.
Second, prep your bed. If you are going to fill in an existing bed, you need to:
- Remove the landscape fabric
- Remove all weeds and unwanted vegetation
- Mulch; and if you want to go the extra mile, apply Preen to keep weeds at bay
If you are going to create a bed by killing grass, you’ll want to do that now as well. If you are solarizing, lay out your black plastic tarp now until Sept. If you have bermuda or johnson grass, you may have to use poison, and you’ll definitely need to dig out all the roots.
Third, observe your space. The benefit of waiting to plant in the fall is that you see the garden at its fullest and shadiest. This gives you a true picture of your site conditions. From there you can determine: where do you need height? Where do you need color?
Fourth, order your plants for the fall. Be sure they are not delivered until planting time. Prairie Moon and Ozark Soul are good about holding plants until fall. With herbaceous plants: get 1 plant per sf. At most 1 plant for 2 sf. To keep things simple, get a groundcover, a grass that looks good in winter, a spring bloomer, a summer bloomer, and a fall bloomer. Check out March and April newsletters for a more in depth review.
3. Creating your outdoor oasis
When it’s 60-70 degrees and sunny, all you need is a comfy chair or a picnic blanket to enjoy the outdoors. But what about summer? Winter? Rain? Will you still want to be outside then? I hope you answer with a resounding YES! But it’s likely you’ll want to make some adjustments first.
Take summer. It’s hot and humid out there. And there are mosquitoes. So what can you do?
- Shade. You need shade in the summer. Sometimes that means building a pergola or a covered porch. Other times it means you need to carve out a sitting area under the shade of a tree. Or maybe you need to plant a tree. Figure out what you need to do to create a shady spot outside.
- Mosquitoes. Don’t treat your yard! I repeat, please, do not get a mosquito treatment service. They kill mosquitoes…and everything else, including beetles, bees, and butterfly larvae. You need the lil bugs if you want birds. So save your money and say no to mosquito treatment services. However, you need to do something, and no, not citronella candles. Thermacel products are really good for repelling mosquitoes. Get the lanterns and thermacel pads for all your outdoor sitting areas. They take 15 min to work, so you need to set it up beforehand. Let me know if you know of a faster acting repellent.
- Fans. You need an outdoor fan. Ideally, you would install a fixture, but as a temporary measure, a freestanding one should work.
- Ambiance. We installed outdoor speakers on all our porches because we love music. It was a game changer. Obviously if you are not a music lover, this is not how you would create ambiance. Think lighting, pillows, colors. Figure out what feels good for you.
If you need some inspiration, go back to the Jan and Feb newsletters to help you think about what kind of outdoor space you want to create.
It’s also a great time to book a consultation with me. Since I’m not planting until October, if you want me to design a garden for you, order affordable wholesale plants for you, and help you prep and plant in October, call/text me!
