'Summer Strong' contest seeks beautiful landscapes that can take the heat
This is image is from the Regional Water Authority's new water-wise gardening campaign. Courtesy Regional Water Authority
Is your water-wise garden ready for a close-up? Here’s your chance to put a regional spotlight on your lawn-less landscape and inspire other residents throughout the greater Sacramento area.
Local water providers are searching for transformed gardens to feature in an upcoming advertising campaign dubbed “Summer Strong.” In particular, the campaign focuses on beautiful, low-water alternatives to thirsty turf such as vibrant native plants and ways to save water including drip irrigation.
Sponsored by the Regional Water Authority (RWA), the “Summer Strong” contest invites Sacramento-area residents to nominate their water-wise yard (or a neighbor’s) online at BeWaterSmart.info/SummerStrong for a chance to be featured on digital billboards throughout the Sacramento region in July and August. Entrants will be eligible to win gift cards from local nurseries.
“The contest is a fun way to showcase what others are doing to create beautiful, water-wise yards ready to take our summer heat,” said Amy Talbot, RWA’s Water Efficiency Program Manager. “We’re looking for a variety of examples, from small-scale projects and do-it-yourself initiatives to larger landscapes and professional designs.”
The deadline to enter is May 31. Eligible entrants must be customers of one of RWA’s member agencies. The RWA includes about two dozen local water providers from Sacramento to El Dorado Hills and Roseville to Elk Grove.
The campaign encourages residents to make their front and backyards “Summer Strong” – “tough enough to muscle through the Sacramento region’s hottest days and still look their best.” That includes such smart gardening practices as watering trees efficiently, adding low-water and native plants, checking soil moisture before turning on sprinklers, installing a WaterSense-labeled smart sprinkler timer and watering plants in the morning to reduce evaporation.
Learn more about creating a “Summer Strong” landscape and enter the contest today at BeWaterSmart.info/SummerStrong.
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Garden Checklist for week of May 11
Make the most of the lower temperatures early in the week. We’ll be back in the 80s by Thursday.
* Plant, plant, plant! It’s prime planting season in the Sacramento area. 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. (You also can transplant seedlings for many of the same flowers.)
* Plant dahlia tubers.
* 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.
* Add mulch to the garden to maintain moisture. 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.
* Remember to weed! Pull those nasties before they set seed.
* Water early in the day and keep seedlings evenly moist.
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