July Gardening Tips

& Maintenance Reminders

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Lawn  /  Landscape  /  Annuals & Perennials  /  house plants

garden  /  pest control

lawn

• Brown Patch is on the spread this time of the year. This is a common lawn disease that causes irregular browning patches and stress to the lawn during hot & humid weather. Hi-Yield Lawn Fungicide Granules can be applied to prevent and cure thhis problem, but manage the below cultural lawn care practice to assist in minimizing this troublesome lawn problem.                                              

• Keep Mower blades sharp....frayed grass blades cause rapid spread of disease

• Water lawns only in the morning or afternoon and avoid late evening watering.   

• Avoid leaving excessive clippings on the lawn's surface after mowing.

• Avoid excessive nitrogen applications during evidence of brown patch problems.

• To gain the greening and lush benefits of fertilizer applications, utilize Ironite to appl to the lawn area as a nutrient supplement. This will not promote brown patch problems while providing a deeper green and lush appearance. Click Here to visit Ironite's website for detailed information on it's many benefits and features.

• Apply Natural Guard's Soil Activator to your to promote a host of benefits to your lawn's overall health. For more detailed information on this product and it's many benefits, click on "Lawn Info"  on our "Lots of Gardening Info" page on this website.

• Dalis Grass is on the rise this summer due to the excessive rainfall that's been occurring. Spot spray with Fertilome Dallis Grass / Crabgrass killer to eliminate weed grasses in the lawn. Remember, this products needs to be applied twice appx. 7-10 days apart to fully kill out these weedy grasses. Also, avoid applying in hot days over 85 degrees and pick non rainy days. Early mornings are a great time to apply the solution to weed grasses.

• Do not mow lawns low due to excessive drying and scalding common during the hot seasons. Fescues prefer to be mowed at a height of 3-3.5".

• In late July & early August, apply Hi=Yield Kill-A-Bug granular insecticide to kill out the grubs that will hatch from eggs laid by the female Japanese beetles throughout their feeding period in your garden. This application will also provide you other benefits from insect control to you lawn.

landscape

• Summer mulch applications to your landscape beds in the summer provide the combined benefits of beauty and function by assisting in controlling unwanted weeds as well as assisting in moisture retention to your tree, shrub, and perennial roots during the hot summer months. 

• A combination of shearing and hand pruning is required this time of year due to the heavy growth that has occurred during the spring and summer periods. Excessive rains have promoted heavy growth of evergreens and deciduous shrubs.

• Fertilizer your landscape trees, shrubs, perennials, and ground covers using one of Fertilome's many quality well balanced fertilizers. Click here to view a wide variety of Fertilome's products that we commonly suggest to our customers. Fertilome Tree & Shrub food, Azalea food, and Gardener's Special is three of our most common fertilizers. Also, fertilize fruit trees with Fertilome Fruit Tree fertilizer.

• Fertilize your roses monthly with Fertilome Rose Food to promote continual growth and flowering.

• Prepare for your spring weed control and acquire a small 1-2 gallon pump sprayer to manage your post emergent herbicide such as Fertilome Kill-Z-All. This non selective herbicide is safe to use around your trees, shrubs, and perennials, as long as you don't spray it directly onto their foliage. This product doesn't harm or damaged plants thru the soil, but has to work thru the foliage of a weed or grass to kill it's entire root system. It's the most effective when you start early and manage a weekly walk thru of your garden to spray grassy and broadleaf weeds when they are small. If managed regularly, you'll find your time invested in weed control to be minimal. Same herbicide as Round Up, but costs less!

annuals & perennials

•  Dead heading old flowers stalks and blooms this time of summer will promote continual or repeat blooming on many perennial varieties. May Night Salvia are among those that respond to clean up and dead heading.

• Apply Fertilome Gardener's Special water soluble fertilizer to your flowers to promote continued heavy blooming throughout the summer season.

• Mulch flower beds with Pine Bark Humus for summer heat and moisture control to minimize watering.

• When flowers thrive and flourish, excessive growth requires them to be occasionally pinched and pruned to contain them within their confines as well as to maintain compact habits and to prune off old flower seed pods. Pruning is great when followed up with a liquid fertilizer application with Fertilome Gardener's Special fertilizer.

• Rainy weather conditions many times causes foliage and stem diseases on various moisture sensitive annuals and perennials. Use Fertilome's Lawn & Garden Fungicide to control many common foliage diseases such as powerry mildew, black spot, and bacterial leaf spot.

• Remember, perennial gardens can become over crowded with many new volunteer seedlings and growing perennial clumps. Occasionally thin out and selective remove or transplant perennial clumps and/or seedlings to prevent over crowding in the perennial garden.

• Remove old Hosta & Daylily bloom stalks this time of year. If you promote removing before they blooming out entirely or turn brown, you'll promote repeat blooming on many varieties. Remove stalks down within the center of the Hosta clump.

house plants

• It's common for house plants to develop insect problems when residing inside the home or when temporarily placed in outdoor conditions on porches or patios. Treat your house plants with a insecticide, such as Safer Killing Soap or Fertilome All Pupose Indoor/Outdoor Insect Spray. Both of these are safe and easy to use around the house. Also, ask about Fertilome's Insecticide granules to place in the soil area of houseplants highly prone to scale such as Weeping Fig or Ficus trees.

• House plants need to be fertilized monthly during the spring thru fall months. We recommend utilizing Fertilome Gardener's Special water soluble fertilizer as an all purpose fertilizer for those house plants you're wanting to flourish. 

• Don't hesitate to prune houseplants removing damaged or diseased foliage and to prune to make more compact and to control size. Follow up pruning and clean up chores with Fertilome Gardener's Special fertilizer.

garden

• Repetitive applications of Maneb fungicide will control early and late blight when applied at 1-2 week intervals.

• Another great all purpose fungicide to use for controlling various types of diseases in the garden is Fertilome's Lawn & Garden Fungicide.

• Use Fertilome Gardeners Special as your garden's #1 fertilizer. One of Evergreen's favorite recommendations for your garden as well as perennials, annuals, and flowering shrubs. Click here to view our page of recommended Fertilome products.

• Experience Fertilome's Air-O-Matic Sprayer that's one of the easier and most versatile hose end sprayers that you'll ever use. Simply put concentrated insecticides or fungicides into it's container and turn the dial to the proper teaspoon or tablespoon mark and spray away. No wasted concentrated chemical. Simply spray and store away for quick use and calibration.

• If your garden is congested with a multitude of weeds and unwanted grasses, utilize Fertilome Kill-Z-All which is a herbicide that you can spray over the surface of the unwanted grasses adn weeds to kill out without harming the soil as you prepare for upcoming vegetable crops.

• An important first step is to determine when to turn the soil. If the soil is still sticky and clumps together, then tilling may cause soil compaction, drainage, and aeration problems later on in the season. If the soil crumbles when you work it around in your hands, then it's okay to till. Till the soil once, turning under any cover crop or residues left from the fall. Then add manure, lime, and other organic matter and work in well to avoid harming the tender roots of plants as they grow. Chemical fertilizers, that your soil test also may recommend, are best applied right before planting. Chemical fertilizers work quickly, but if they are applied too early in the season they may leach out of the soil and lose their effectiveness.

• Keep those tomato plants staked and thinned to control excessive growth habits which cause over crowding. Thin out and remove excessive growth suckers.

• Apply Fertilome Yield Booster & Blossom End Rot  spray to tomato and pepper plants to promote improve yield & to prevent blossom end rot on tomato and pepper at time of ripening.

• Apply Fertilome Tomato & Pepper Set spray to tomato and pepper plants to improve blossom set for increased tomato and pepper production. 

Pest Control

• For a one time treatment of lacebug, Scale, Aphids, Adelgids, and other various ornamental pests on Azaleas, Rhododendron, Holly, Euonymus, and other evergreens and flowering shrubs, apply a soil drench of Bayer Tree & Shrub Advanced Insect Control insecticide that provides a year of system insect control.

• Utilize Fertilome  all purpose Kill-A-Bug II insect control for a broad range of garden and ornamental pest. This utilizes a natural derived insecticide called pyrethrins that provides a quick kill of various insects without worrying about dangerous toxic non-organic insecticides.

• Apply Fertilome Kill-A-Bug II insecticide granules to lawn and landscapes to control unwanted soil insects such as spiders, ants, crickets, and other troublesome pests.

• Apply Fertilome Carbyl liquid garden insecticide formally known as liquid Sevin. A safe use insecticide that can be used on garden plants for up to 7 days from harvest.

• Borer control is best to be prevented other than cured once borers have entered the tree. Over the counter insecticides perform limited control to borer infested trees, so treat your landscape trees & shrubs highly prone to shrubs with Bayer Advanced Tree & Shrub Insect Control.  Trees & shrubs that should be considered for preventative treatment are the following......(Trees) Dogwoods, Flowering Cherries, Birch  (Shrubs) Rhododendron & Otto Lukens Laurel.

• Apply Fertilome Kill-A-Bug or or Fertilome Malathion to kill out the beginning stages of bagworms on Junipers, Cypress, Hemlocks, Arborvitae, Crytomeria, and other forms of evergreens.

• Spider mites are a common hot season insect that's more difficult to manage than many other garden insects. They thrive on various broadleaf and coniferous evergreens such as Laurel, Hemlocks, Holly, etc. Spray Ortho Orthonex insecticide containing a systemic insecticide required for the tougher controlled spider mites. For control of infestations, make several repeated applications on 2 week intervals.

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