blooming

Walter Reeve's Garden Calendar

FIRST WEEK

Fertilize salvia and chrysanthemums with liquid plant food. They will reward you with lots of blooms later this fall.

Examine your flower beds for tired out perennials like Shasta daisy, black-eyed Susan and purple coneflower. You can cut off dead flowers and brown foliage to neaten the plants for fall.

Preserve excess basil leaves by pureeing in a blender with a little water. Freeze the slush in an ice tray and use the cubes in your wintertime spaghetti sauce.

Lightly trim back the tropical hibiscus you kept outdoors for the summer. Make plans for where you’ll place it indoors in bright light.

Divide daylily, iris and monkey grass while you still have several weeks of warm weather to encourage root growth.

SECOND WEEK

Spot spray the broadleaf weeds in your lawn with a herbicide labeled for their control.

You can’t live in the South without trying a muscadine: Pop it in your mouth, suck the pulp out of the skin, enjoy the juice, then spit out the skin and seeds. What a delicious mess!

It’s a great time to plant peony roots. A good, old-time favorite is ‘Festiva Maxima’. For real excitement, plant a tree peony and get huge blooms next May.

Before planting fescue seed, wipe out weeds with a fast-acting but short-lived weed killer. Use Next Day, Finale or RoundUp now; you can seed in seven days.

Bermuda lawns sometimes, but not always, benefit from a “winterizer” fertilizer application. Do it now when growth has slowed but before frost turns the grass brown.

THIRD WEEK

Spring-flowering bulbs are on sale now. You can buy them – but don’t put them in the ground until soil temperatures are in the 60?s or cooler in early October.

Time to plant cool season vegetable seedlings. Broccoli, collards and cabbage plants should be available at garden centers.

Watch out for saddleback caterpillars feeding on the leaves of trees and weeds. Their poisonous bristles can leave a nasty welt on your skin.

Examine patio plants for insects if you intend to bring them indoors. Treat with insecticide if necessary.

Time for the first application of fertilizer on fescue grass. This cool season turf needs fertilizer in September, November, February and April.

FOURTH WEEK

Cooler weather means it’s time to plant shrubs and trees. Make sure to dig a hole three times as wide as the root ball.

Propagate limber-limbed hydrangea, grape and forsythia plants by placing a thin branch on the ground and partially covering it with soil and a brick.

Did chickweed and annual bluegrass run rampant in your lawn last spring? Now’s the time to put out a pre-emergent weed preventer on lawns you’ll not overseed this fall.

Planting a new fescue lawn? Use 6 pounds of seed per 1000 square feet.

Replace all of the mulch under roses, red tip photinia and crabapples. You’ll prevent diseases on next year’s leaves.

For more information, contact: rose@DunwoodyGardenClub.com