Some apple types are already ripe. Do you know how to make an apple puff? You chase it around the yard.
There’s a lot happening around the yard and garden in late summer. Have you noticed how beautiful the petunias in containers and hanging baskets are this year, both in home yards and up and down city streets?
A long-standing recommendation to keep petunias blooming vigorously was to deadhead them, meaning pinching off the withered flower petals and the small green seed capsule to which the petals were attached.
Good news! Modern hybrid trailing-type petunias don’t need deadheading. They continue flowering magnificently without pinching off the old, dead flowers. Plant descriptions often refer to these as “self-cleaning.”
Most petunias developed for containers and baskets are sterile, so they don’t produce the seedpods that drain energy and cause the decline common with older petunia cultivars. These carefree hybrids include series such as Wave, Vista, Supertunia and others that are popular purchases at garden centers each spring.
Can you imagine city maintenance crews trying to meticulously pick away the faded blossoms on the huge petunia baskets hanging from light poles along downtown streets? There are thousands on every plant. Thankfully, it’s not needed, and the baskets bloom profusely.
It’s important to note, though, that these trailing-type petunias mustn’t be allowed to dry out. If they do, they decline. If that happens, or if trailing petunias begin going downhill by mid-summer, they can be trimmed back by about half to rejuvenate them.
We’re living in gardening good times. Not only did plant breeders develop self-cleaning petunias, but new cultivars of impatiens resist the diseases that can wipe out older types. My wife, Mary, and I planted Beacon Mix impatiens in window boxes, and the rich colors are spectacular with a neat mounding plant habit.
I’m also impressed with the way Non-Stop begonias have grown this year. Although I’ve grown them for decades, this summer’s combination of temperature and humidity has made the rounded flowers huge with exceptionally deep color tones. We start the tiny seeds in February each year under lights in our basement.
Hybrid Petunia cultivars, such as Bee’s Knees, require no deadheading for the plant to continue blooming.
Chris Flynn / The Forum
Plentiful rains this summer have eased the task of keeping flowerbeds watered, and lawns are lush and green around much of the region. I don’t remember an August when our lawn has looked this nice. During the past two or three years our lawn was crunchy brown and dormant by late summer.
Beautiful turf reminds us that Labor Day, or shortly after, is the most important time of year to fertilize lawns. Research has shown that if you fertilize only once per year, now is the most effective time to do it.
September is the month when turfgrass makes its greatest root growth, creating a deeply rooted turf less dependent on supplemental irrigation. Grass plants also make abundant horizontal shoot growth this time of year that fills gaps, creating a thick lawn better able to smother weeds, requiring less herbicide use.
To best accomplish this important September growth, lawns need nutrition, and that’s why the Labor Day fertilizing is so important. The health of next year’s lawn depends greatly on what we do now.
I’ve learned the hard way the importance of fertilizing lawns in fall. A few years ago, I ran out of fertilizer when I had a small strip of lawn left, and decided against buying another whole bag to finish.
The following spring, the unfertilized strip was highly noticeable. Not only did it lack the rich green of the fertilized part, but it didn’t green up as quickly and was less vigorous the entire year, even after the spring Memorial Day fertilizer application. I became a believer.
Non-stop begonias thrive in shade and flower all summer.
Chris Flynn / The Forum
Moving to the vegetable garden, it’s been a good year, with everything producing quite well. Tomatoes were a little late to form and ripen, likely due to the yo-yo temperatures common this growing season. But we’ll have enough for canning and freezing.
All in all, it’s been a pretty good growing season. I enjoy walking around the yard each evening, appreciating the annual flowers, many of them at their peak, and watching the vegetables mature.
I know it will all end soon with Mother Nature’s inevitable frost, but I’m already looking forward to next year, the changes I’ll make and opportunities to try new things.
NDSU to host Arboretum event Sept. 6
North Dakota State University will host an educational event and tour called Branch Out on Saturday, Sept. 6 from 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at the NDSU Research Arboretum.
The 35-acre arboretum is tucked into the countryside between Absaraka and Amenia, N.D., about 45 miles west of Fargo, and contains over 5,000 different species and cultivars of trees and shrubs.
Joe Bergeson, owner of Bergeson Nursery, is the keynote speaker on the topic of Shrubs for Homeowners.
The day will include trailer tours of the entire facility, plus programs on pruning shrubs, building a rain barrel and fall tasks for healthy landscapes.
Advance registration is required by Sept. 2 with a $15 fee that includes lunch and afternoon snack. Learn more and register at
https://www.ndsu.edu/agriculture/plant-sciences/research/branch-out-ndsu.
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