We are so grateful that June has stayed fairly mild in comparison to the last couple of years. They are even predicting July 4th to be in the high 80’s. Wow. That has translated into our best June sales in quite a while. The nursery racks and tables are jam-packed as more varieties of perennials and annuals become available for the season, along with the earlier available ones. Here are some of the late arrivals for the sun:
Annual Vinca: Deer resistant, heat-loving, long-flowering, low grower, and no maintenance. A winner.
Summer Snaps/Angelonia: These bloom all summer with a little height in containers. An annual here.
Magellan and Dreamland Zinnias from Blooms Nursery: For an immediate pop. Deer and heat tolerant.
Cape Fuchsia/Phygelius: Deer-resistant perennial that is almost a small shrub. Hummingbirds go for the tubular blossoms. Spreading. Good in a container or in the ground. This should be planted more than it is.
Dwarf Plumbago/ Ceratostigma: Handsome ground covering perennial with intense blue flowers. Goes completely dormant in winter after the fall foliage color. Deer resistant.
Sticky Monkey Flower/ Mimulus aurantiacus: Ca. Native with showy flowers. A must for the native garden.
Bee Balm, Hummingbird Mint, Coreopsis, Echinacea: More selection available now.
Milkweed: Both native and non-native.
Blooming shade plants, specially deer-resistant ones, are limited no matter what season we are in. When it comes to shade, texture, a variety of leaf forms, and gold or variegated (green and white or green and yellow) foliage is often the aim. Here are your best bets:
Coleus: Lots of different colors in the foliage. It is an annual, so it just lasts til frost. Takes some sun too.
Wishbone Flower/ Torenia: If Impatiens are not your thing, you might want to look at these.
Upright Fuchsias: These tend to be a little more durable than the trailing type. We are working on getting in the one-gallon cold-hardy ones from Little Prince, but they are not ready yet.
Abutilon/ Flowering Maples: These will grow in shade but bloom better with a little sun.
Liriope: These deer-resistant grass-like perennials do flower for a short while in the summer. Easy to grow.
Japanese Anemones: Late-flowering and deer-resistant perennials. These can be very showy in flower. Drawbacks are like water and can be invasive in a moist spot, so watch where you put it.
Hydrangeas: The queens of summer. Unfortunately, we get very hot for the macrophyllas. The best bet with these is a container with a dish underneath to hold water. More heat-tolerant varieties like the Oak Leaf and Grandifloras are a better bet. Plant in bright shade. The good news is that the Hydrangea flowers are long-lasting.
If you want your flowers to look their best, you do need to groom and feed them. Fertilizing, taking off spent flowers, cutting back petunias, and other plants that are a little straggly, goes a long way in keeping your containers, hanging baskets, and in-ground planting looking good. Making sure they are getting water down through the entire root zone and beyond is also a must. Baiting for earwigs with our natural Sluggo Plus and monitoring for bud and hornworms (use our Bt spray for them) and other critters is important too. I recently read an article about all the things kelp is good for. It is nutrient-rich and very gentle, strengthens cell walls, promotes water retention, provides trace minerals, enhances soil life, and improves flowers and fruiting. It is easy to apply with a bucket or even better as a foliar spray if you use our Seaweed with Kelp. For watering can or bucket application, you can use our EBStone Fish Emulsion with kelp. ( I find it too thick for our hose-end sprayers.) One added benefit to the fish emulsion is that it is reported to deter gophers. I am thinking I am going to try some seaweed on my houseplants, too. Do all spraying and fertilizing early in the morning or late in the day.
Permaculture is a subject I am not versed in, but I recently came across an article about Forest Gardens. Basically, meaning multi layers of edible, medicinal, fungi, and ornamentals can also be adapted to small spaces. Besides supplementing food for the family, medicinal plants are included. Providing critical habitat for wildlife and promoting carbon sequestration are all in the big picture. I believe a lot of us are doing this already in some form or another. If you want to delve into this further, their website is NCAT.ORG.
In addition to what we have already discussed, now is the time to do some summer pruning on your fruit trees to keep the fruit low and pickable. It is recommended to prune apricots and cherries after harvest. However, make sure you do not open the tree up to sun scorch. We still have ladybugs for sale if whitefly or spider mites are a problem. The Crepe Myrtles and Rose of Sharons are starting to bloom or are blooming. These shrubs and trees bloom over a long period in summer and come in assorted colors. We have some very nice #5 Plumbago auriculata. These can get cold-damaged here, but most people who have planted them in the lower elevations have been successful with them coming back after winter. These bloom all summer and can be trained up as a vine or left to sprawl. They make a good, large-scale bank/ground cover like the Lady Banks roses.
Here is to hoping our summer continues to stay mild by our standards. Kick back and enjoy the fruits of your labor. Closed July 4th.
July Specials
20% Off
- 4 lb. EBStone Tomato/Veg Food
- Liquid Seaweed and EBStone Fish Emulsion
- Crepe Myrtle tree and shrub forms
- Selected Vegetable Starts
Half Off summer bulbs
