Are your petunias pooped? Your marigolds no longer merry? Well,
welcome to the in-between garden season! Yes, this is the time of
year when your annual flower beds usually look pretty ragged as
your summer color is afflicted with
”
annual decline.
”
This condition causes most of those bedding flowers you planted
early in the summer to languish in the heat. Blooming slows way
down and often they simply stop flowering.
Ah, but thanks to the fact we live in such a great climate, many
summer annuals will continue to bloom right through
Thanksgiving
– with a little care.
Are your petunias pooped? Your marigolds no longer merry? Well, welcome to the in-between garden season! Yes, this is the time of year when your annual flower beds usually look pretty ragged as your summer color is afflicted with “annual decline.” This condition causes most of those bedding flowers you planted early in the summer to languish in the heat. Blooming slows way down and often they simply stop flowering.
Ah, but thanks to the fact we live in such a great climate, many summer annuals will continue to bloom right through Thanksgiving – with a little care.
What little care you ask? Well, the solution begins with a little education.
Most bedding plants you buy in six-packs or four inch pots are annuals. Annual plants live for just one yearly growing season. By the end of the summer, annual plants will fade as they attempt to set seed. That’s because the job of a flower in life is to reproduce. Setting seed is the way flowers reproduce. The first rule of annual color gardening is to never allow seeds to form on your plants.
You can prevent plants from going to seed by deadheading. Deadheading doesn’t have anything to do with the Grateful Dead. In horticultural terms, deadheading is simply cutting off your old flowers. Snipping away old, faded flowers fools your plant into putting into energy into reblooming instead of seed. Deadheading is easily accomplished two or three times a week. By snipping often, you’ll stay on top of things and ensure your plants continue to bloom.
Inadequate diet is another cause of annual decline. Everyone knows plants need water to live, but gardeners often forget about food. After the first flush of blooms, annuals need food to produce another worthwhile crop of buds. Sure, annuals will continue to bloom without fertilizer, but you’ll see a significant difference in the number and size of flowers if you fertilize.
Fertilize thoroughly and do it often. I always use a foliar fertilizer, such as Miracle-Gro or fish emulsion because it’s so easy and inexpensive to use. This way plants and flowers are getting it through their leaves and stems, as well as their roots. For best results, try to feed in the early morning or at dusk because water on the leaves in direct sun can cause damage.
Of course, you can supplement liquid fertilizer with other forms of fertilizer, too. Dry fertilizer is available from a multitude of companies, including Scotts, Best, Ortho, Bandini and more. There are also organic forms of fertilizer, such as blood meal, hoof and horn meal, steer manure, bat guano and more. It’s up to you how exotic you want to get.
So-called timed-release pellets like Osmocote are great, too. These pellets slowly release fertilizer over several months.
Finally, when you do water, water well. Even if you have an automatic sprinkler system, consider supplementing that water with the garden hose or, better yet, a soaker hose. Often times, sprinkler systems will only wet the top few inches of soil. I always try to “flood” my garden beds every week or two during the summer. This encourages deep rooting so the plants can draw off a larger area of soil. Deep rooting makes plants doubly resistant to the effects of heat, too.
Keith Muraoka lives and works in Gilroy. His column appears regularly in the Free Lance.
E-mail him at
ga********@jp*.net
