Sacramento Digs Gardening: Dig In: Garden checklist for week of Aug. 19

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.

CHECKLIST FOR THE WEEK

Your weekly checklist of activities in the garden.

Keywords:

fertilizing seeds gardening Sacramento garden chores begonias fall gardening summer gardens perennials watering

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Garden Checklist for week of May 19

Temperatures will be a bit higher than normal in the afternoons this week. Take care of chores early in the day – then enjoy the afternoon. It’s time to smell the roses.

* Plant, plant, plant! It’s prime planting season in the Sacramento area. If you haven’t already, it’s time to set out those tomato transplants along with peppers and eggplants. Pinch off any flowers on new transplants to make them concentrate on establishing roots instead of setting premature fruit.

* Direct-seed melons, cucumbers, summer squash, corn, radishes, pumpkins and annual herbs such as basil.

* Harvest cabbage, lettuce, peas and green onions.

* In the flower garden, direct-seed sunflowers, cosmos, salvia, zinnias, marigolds, celosia and asters.

* Plant dahlia tubers. Other perennials to set out include verbena, coreopsis, coneflower and astilbe.

* Transplant petunias, marigolds and perennial flowers such as astilbe, columbine, coneflowers, coreopsis, dahlias, rudbeckia and verbena.

* Keep an eye out for slugs, snails, earwigs and aphids that want to dine on tender new growth.

* Feed summer bloomers with a balanced fertilizer.

* For continued bloom, cut off spent flowers on roses as well as other flowering plants.

* Don’t forget to water. Seedlings need moisture. Deep watering will help build strong roots and healthy plants.

* Add mulch to the garden to help keep that precious water from evaporating. Mulch also cuts down on weeds. But don’t let it mound around the stems or trunks of trees or shrubs. Leave about a 6-inch to 1-foot circle to avoid crown rot or other problems.

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