David W. Marshall
| Guest columnist
The writers of the song “Summertime and the Livin’ Is Easy” obviously weren’t gardeners in Tallahassee. We’re into that hot and humid period for the next several months. Thunderstorms are usually frequent this time of year, but there will always be some periods without rain when watering is critical, particularly for any plants you planted this season and that still have limited root systems.
The best hours for doing your gardening work now are early morning or very late in the afternoon. Unfortunately, these hours are also popular with mosquitoes, so don’t forget your insect repellent.
Drink plenty of water or sports drinks to maintain electrolytes and avoid heat exhaustion or even possibly heatstroke. Stay ahead of the water loss. Don’t wait until you’re so thirsty to drink. However, if you use these precautions and have the right plants in your garden, summer can be a very rewarding time too.
And the work can be good exercise, even for your heart. If you wear a fitness tracker while you do garden work, you will see what I mean.
Evaluate tree health ahead of storm season
One final word of caution is due, however, before we start talking about things to be doing in the garden now. If you remember last year’s hurricane season, we had at least a couple of times when it looked like we might be right in the path of a hurricane.
After the storms, tree services were swamped for the rest of the year and even into this year. So right now, if you haven’t given a serious look at the trees in your yard, this is the time to do it. Focus on the trees that would have a target with serious or very costly consequences, such as a house, and look seriously at any of those that show signs of decline or other stress that may cause them to fall or break up in heavy winds.
Some, such as old water oaks or pines with cankers, are likely candidates for removal if their failure in strong winds would result in great damage or danger to you, your family, or others. Others, such as southern magnolias or live oaks, typically withstand hurricane winds better.
But there are many factors involved. Hazardous tree evaluation is a whole science in itself. If in doubt, consult with a certified arborist. But the take-home message is to prepare before we have storms. Don’t overreact and remove every tree in your yard. Instead, calculate the possible risks and address what you feel you cannot ignore emotionally and can afford monetarily.
Keep up with the lawn
Mow your lawn regularly now, every seven to 10 days if possible. Keep those mower blades sharp, though, to get a good, clean cut. When rainfall is scarce, mow the grass a little higher to reduce stress and water needs. Always mow a little higher in shaded areas. Don’t fertilize the lawn again until late August, if it even needs it then.
Centipede grass probably won’t need any more fertilizer this year, but types such as St. Augustine, zoysia, or bermuda will usually benefit from a late summer application. If you do fertilize, make sure the fertilizer has at least as much potassium (the last number) as nitrogen (the first number).
As the summer advances, be vigilant for damage from tropical sod webworms, especially in St. Augustine grass lawns. But webworms can quickly eat large areas of any type of lawn in late summer. You usually just see the damage and not the night-feeding caterpillars unless you check the lawn with a flashlight at night. Control of these and other pests is much easier if you spot and address them early. In the early stages, look for characteristic notches chewed into the leaf blades of the grass.
Some people say to just ignore the damage and the lawn will come back next year. However, my experience is that you can totally lose areas of the lawn, and weeds will fill those spots. I have a lot of lawn burweed this year, and I think it got started in areas of the St. Augustine that were weakened in years past by the sod webworms.
So, I recommend that you address the problem early with an appropriate insecticide, applied with enough water to get it down into the grass well, and then you will have much less damage. Repeat insecticide applications may be necessary in accordance with label directions.
You may be able to get by with just spot treating the affected areas and a buffer around them, but stay alert for any new damage that may pop up. The tropical sod webworms stay with us until the nights cool down sufficiently in the fall.
Turn to heat tolerant flowers
Some of the flowers, such as petunias, that you enjoyed into June will probably not tolerate the heat and humidity of summer.
Turn to more summer-tolerant flowers such as Torenia, Pentas, bronze shrimp plant, annual vinca, zinnia, African bulbine, Melampodium, Agapanthus, butterfly ginger, Turk’s cap, purple coneflower, perennial salvia, hydrangea, cleome, Rudbeckia, Gaillardia, California bush daisy, plumbago, rain lily, Cuphea, and many more available at your local nurseries.
For a large perennial shrub that hummingbirds and butterflies love, plant a firebush (Hamelia patens). But select the kind that has the darker orange-red flowers, not the paler yellowish-orange ones.
Flowering trees
Crape myrtles are the colorful trees of the season, providing color all through the summer. As we move into fall, many of them even have colorful fall foliage, too. But beware! The biggest mistake people make with crape myrtles is selecting a variety that ends up growing too large for the selected spot. Do your research before buying, and then pick a variety that won’t grow too tall or too wide for its site.
Another good summer-flowering tree is the chaste tree, Vitex agnus-castus. Its blue flower spikes are attractive to hummingbirds, but they are also attractive to bees, so you may not want to plant one if you’re extremely allergic to bee stings – though I’ve never been stung while working around one of these small, attractive trees. There are different varieties of chaste trees; some have deeper blue flowers than others, and some are smaller than others.
Remove overgrown shrubs
This is still an excellent time of year to remove landscape plants that have overgrown your house and can no longer be reasonably maintained with pruning. Replace them with plants that won’t grow so large at maturity. Visit your favorite nurseries and look for more suitable “dwarf” shrubs or even grass-like plants such as Lomandra that will make your landscape maintenance much easier.
Harvest heat-tolerant veggies
If you have a vegetable garden, you have probably found that the pests are destroying tomato plants and perhaps others such as squash. That’s normal for this late in the season and is all but impossible to stop now. But you may still have some heat-tolerant vegetables such as okra, eggplant, peppers, lima beans, southern peas, and sweet potatoes faring well in the garden now.
Keep the garden area clean, removing dead and dying plants from your spring planting so as not to build up greater pest populations. Also, keep weeds that can harbor pests away from the edge of the garden area.
In August, you can begin to add more plantings of lima beans, snap beans, cucumbers, peppers, pumpkins, summer squash, and tomatoes. Just be sure to use the varieties of tomatoes that will still set fruit in hot weather.
Figs and other fruit trees
Take advantage of the summer growing season to plant new fruit trees, especially citrus, which will benefit from the extra growth and hardiness they can achieve before going into the winter. Fertilize young citrus trees every other month with a special citrus fertilizer that contains secondary and micronutrients.
Figs are producing fruit now. If you enjoy fresh figs or fig preserves and don’t already have a fig bush, you may be considering planting one. Just be aware: common fig (Ficus carica) is now classified by UF/IFAS as “high invasion risk” statewide, meaning it’s considered invasive in North, Central, and South Florida. That said, many gardeners in our area continue to grow it successfully – and local nurseries still offer recommended varieties like ‘Brown Turkey,’ ‘Celeste’ and ‘Ischia.’
Preferably give it a spot in full sun and allow plenty of room, as a mature fig can grow ten feet or more across and nearly as tall. Figs are easy to grow, but squirrels, raccoons, birds and other critters love them too – so you may have to compete for the harvest. Plan to pick fruit daily, or even twice a day, during peak ripening.
Fight the weeds
Weeds grow quickly at this time of year. Maintain a two-inch mulch layer around plants to slow the weeds. Try to keep weeds pulled, or in some cases you may even have to spot-treat with herbicide. If you use herbicide, be sure to follow label directions and precautions carefully.
If you broadcast a fire ant bait across your yard this spring, you may not have much trouble with fire ant mounds now. If you didn’t, that can still be done. Sprinkling bait around – but not directly on – fire ant mounds can also be done to treat individual mounds quickly. Always, always read the directions on any pesticide before application!
David W. Marshall is a horticultural consultant and an Extension Agent Emeritus with UF/IFAS Extension Leon County, an Equal Opportunity Institution. For gardening questions, email the extension office at AskAMasterGardener@ifas.ufl.edu.