Planting for Summer Color
By Dr. Jerry Parsons
Plant: For color get the begonias and impatiens in quickly if you expect them to fare well when the heat arrives. Wait to mid-month to plant periwinkles. ·Don’t plant vinca until at least June 1. Hot weather plants include firebush, lantana, poinciana, esperanza, firespike, caladium, coleus, begonia, moss rose, hibiscus, bougainvillea, purslane, cannas and blue princess verbena
Plant sun-loving, heat tolerant annual flowers such as portulaca, purslane, copper plants, lantanas, and ornamental peppers. Do not transplant vinca (periwinkle) until June after the rainy season is over. Let your wildflowers go to seed before mowing.
Prune pillar or climbing roses as soon as they have finished their major bloom to allow time for the development of new canes for next spring’s blooms. Prune storm-damaged tree branches immediately after damage occurs.
Fertilize: If you have not applied fertilizer to the lawn, May is a good month to fertilize lawn grasses after the lawn grass has been mowed twice. Slow release fertilizers are best because they feed throughout the growing season and do not leach (wash) into the ground
Odd Jobs: After spring bulbs have finished flowering, wait until the foliage turns brown before cutting it off. Food is being manufactured and stored for next year’s blooms. Mulch plants to reduce watering requirements, suppress weed growth and minimize soil temperature changes. Peach fruit should be thinned to six to eight inches apart along the fruiting branches which generally leaves about 600 fruit per mature tree; apples and pears should be thinned to one fruit per spur or cluster.
On the Lookout: To encourage more rapid re-blooming, pinch off old flowers on bedding plants after their first flower cycle is completed. Roses may encounter insect problems. Watch for aphids on tender new growth, thrips on flowers and cucumber beetles on foliage. Beetles are especially a problem if a vegetable garden is nearby. Fear not, this is the normal season of leaf shed for photinias, gardenias, ligustrums, pittosporums and magnolias.
3 Responses
My “knock out roses have really disappointed. I have fertilized and watered weekly throughtout the summer,but the blooms are small and very limited. They have direct sunlight all day,they were planted in April and started off looking very healthy and the plants look healthy they just aren’t bloming like I had hoped. The fertilizer was for flowering plants and roses were listed it is a granular type that I sprinkle on the ground and water in each time. Maybe a fertilizer just for roses. I have been putting banana,coffee grounds,and Epsom salt in the ground and I m still not seeing many blooms and they are very small when I do get any booms. I have four vinca. That lines the front of the bed that have been BEAUTIFUL all summer long. These roses are planted in a bed that we dug out and replaced the existing soil with topsoil and miracle grow soil and we topped the soil with wood mulch.
Do you have any suggestions or does it sound like we did something wrong to cause any reason for the lack of blooms?
Dolly,
Thank you for your comment. For many plants and roses are one of them, high temperatures particularly high night time temperatures actually retard blooming. As the night temperatures cool you should see more vigorous growth, blooms and color. Also, Knockouts have the habit of cycling bloom period. Deadheading helps shorten the cycle, but it still takes a little time. Fall is the time to re-mulch roses, prune out any dead wood and continue feeding for about the next 30 days. I would not be surprised if you wind happy with your roses later this fall. I hope this helps. Please let us know how it works out.
I am looking for the Hibiscus plant that has all 3 colors (pink, yellow and orange) on same plant. I bought one 2 years ago at Home Depot and have never seen another one. The paper on it says the color is “Tropical Breeze” and the blooms are beautiful and the plant is hardy. Can I order 3 more of these and can you get them?