Welcome to July, gardeners! Summer is in full swing and the days are heating up after a wet, cool spring.
“And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.”
~ F. Scott Fitzgerald
Check these July gardening tips off your to-do lists. It’s always helpful to know what to do in the garden this month! If you missed our tips last month, you can find them here.
Trees and Shrubs
Temperatures are rising and insects are getting hungry! Keep an eye out for diseases and pests including powdery mildew, peach twig borers (on peach, nectarine, cherry, and apricot trees), and codling moth (on apple and pear trees). The codling moth’s larvae are the ones to blame for wormy apples.
Watch out for red spider mites. If you suspect that you may have spider mites, flick a branch or leaf onto white paper and look carefully to see if any of the specks move. 
There are a few options when it comes to getting rid of spider mites. Consider using a hard spray of water to knock them back, dormant oil, or organic insecticides.
Continue deep soaking newly planted trees and shrubs 2 to 3 times per week and fully established plants 2 to 3 times per month. Check out our watering guide for more tips.
Flowers
Remove faded flowers from annuals and roses to promote re-blooming. Removing the spent flowers will encourage the plants to produce more and more beautiful blooms. You can also remove spent flowers from your perennials, though it likely won’t help to extend their bloom season.
It may not be your favorite chore, but keep up on the weeding! A little prevention by pulling them early prevents weeds from going to seed. Once they go to seed they’ll start growing like…well, weeds.
Give your Hanging baskets and planters a refresh. . They may need some sprucing up. Cut back overgrown plants and replace any spent plants as needed. A few pops of new color mixed in with the cleaned-up flowers will keep your planters and baskets looking as beautiful as the day you bought them.
Hanging baskets may need extra water in the summer heat so test the soil in the morning and again in the evening.
Lawn
A lot of folks are reducing (or even eliminating) lawn from their yards these days. But, one thing to keep in mind – a healthy lawn does help to keep the yard cooler.
Lawn care doesn’t have to use up excessive amounts of water. Creating a strong root system with healthy soil allows your lawn to look great with far less water than you might think. Now is also a good time to apply products like Revive, Groundbreaker, Hydretain, and TurfMax – four products to help your lawn in the heat.
- Ground Breaker – This product loosens compacted soil opening up pore space which allows for better water and air penetration. It binds salt to itself and flushes it below the root zone. It will help to normalize Ph and allows plants to have better access to nutrients.
- Hydretain – Hydretain is not another wetting agent, surfactant, or super absorbent polymer crystal. It is actually a liquid group of hygroscopic and humectant components that attracts moisture. In other words, by acting like tiny “water magnets,” they form microscopic droplets within the root zone. As a result, this process allows plants to utilize soil moisture that would otherwise be lost to evaporation.
- TurfMax – TurfMAX contains over 50 ingredients to treat and correct a wide range of factors that make grass unhealthy. It is the only product that addresses all the needs of lawns and the soil they grow in.
- Revive – Getting water to the roots is the secret of Revive’s success. Its unique formula allows water to move deeper down into the soil, bringing organic lawn fertilizers and air with it. This results in much stronger grass roots that produce a thick green, healthy lawn.
For more tips, check out our Seasonal Tips page.
