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Dig In: Garden checklist for week of Aug. 19

Sacramento Digs Gardening
BY Debbie Arrington PUBLISHED AUG 18, 2018

Feed your begonias now for more late summer and fall blooms. (Photo: Debbie Arrington)

Enjoy end of summer while focusing on fall

Mid-August garden chores focus on rejuvenation. Your fall garden starts now, but you still want to enjoy the final long days of summer.

Here's how to help your landscape get ready for autumn (and look good during the last of the summer heat):

* Deep water plants, especially large shrubs and trees. Check the soil visually -- with a long screwdriver, trowel or soil probe -- to make sure moisture is reaching 6 inches deep or more.

* Always water before feeding plants, even with liquid fertilizers. Roots need moisture to pick up nutrients. Otherwise, added fertilizer may do more harm than good.

* Camellia leaves looking a little yellow? Feed them some chelated iron. That goes for azaleas and gardenias, too.

* Cut off spent blooms from roses, then give them a boost of fertilizer. Roses will rebloom about six to eight weeks after deadheading.

* Pinch off dead flowers from perennials and annuals to lengthen their summer bloom and tidy up garden beds.

* Feed begonias, fuchsias, annuals and container plants to prompt another round of flowers.

* Fertilize fall-blooming perennials, too. Chrysanthemums can be fed until the buds start to open.

What to plant now:

* Indoors, start seedlings for fall vegetable planting, including bunching onion, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, radicchio and lettuce.

* Sow seeds of perennials in pots for fall planting including yarrow, coneflower and salvia.

* In the garden, direct seed beets, carrots, leaf lettuce and turnips. Plant potatoes.

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Garden Checklist for week of Nov. 3

November still offers good weather for fall planting:

* If you haven't already, it's time to clean up the remains of summer. Pull faded annuals and vegetables. Prune dead or broken branches from trees.

* Now is the best time to plant most trees and shrubs. This gives them plenty of time for root development before spring growth. They also benefit from fall and winter rains.

* Set out cool-weather annuals such as pansies and snapdragons.

* Lettuce, cabbage and broccoli also can be planted now.

* Plant garlic and onions.

* Keep planting bulbs to spread out your spring bloom. Some possible suggestions: daffodils, crocuses, hyacinths, tulips, anemones and scillas.

* This is also a good time to seed wildflowers and plant such spring bloomers as sweet pea, sweet alyssum and bachelor buttons.

* Rake and compost leaves, but dispose of any diseased plant material. For example, if peach and nectarine trees showed signs of leaf curl this year, clean up under trees and dispose of those leaves instead of composting.

* Save dry stalks and seedpods from poppies and coneflowers for fall bouquets and holiday decorating.

* For holiday blooms indoors, plant paperwhite narcissus bulbs now. Fill a shallow bowl or dish with 2 inches of rocks or pebbles. Place bulbs in the dish with the root end nestled in the rocks. Add water until it just touches the bottom of the bulbs. Place the dish in a sunny window. Add water as needed.

* Give your azaleas, gardenias and camellias a boost with chelated iron.

* For larger blooms, pinch off some camellia buds.

* Prune non-flowering trees and shrubs while dormant.

* To help prevent leaf curl, apply a copper fungicide spray to peach and nectarine trees after they lose their leaves this month. Leaf curl, which shows up in the spring, is caused by a fungus that winters as spores on the limbs and around the tree in fallen leaves. Sprays are most effective now.

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