July 2009 Articles

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Planning the summer flower garden

Planning the summer flower garden Dan Gill, LSU AgCenter Horticulturist As we move into April, we can enjoy the peak blooming season of our cool-season annuals. But it’s not too early to begin to plan our summer gardens. If you have empty flowerbeds, you may even begin to plant summer flowers in late March (in south La) or early to mid-April (in north La). Thoughtful planning, carefully considered plant choices and well-prepared garden beds will produce the best results. Many a gardener’s enthusiastic spring efforts have turned into summer disappointment & burdensome maintenance chores without proper planning. Planning-Prominently placed beds are planted with bedding plants to create color in the landscape. If they aren’t properly maintained through the heat of summer, these beds can become eyesores that actually detract from the appearance of the landscape. By all means, plant to your heart’s content. But plan your beds so the maintenance they will require can be carried out not just in spring but throughout the hot summer. Flowerbeds are among the highest maintenance areas in your landscape. Don’t plant more beds than you have the time or inclination to devote to their care & upkeep. Another part of planning involves developing a color scheme. Before you go to the nursery, think about the colors you want to use & their placement in the landscape. Use masses of the same color to maximize visual impact. Use colors that combine well with the background and that pleasantly harmonize or contrast with each other. Locate color in the landscape where you want to focus the viewer’s attention. Generally, choosing a limited number of colors or variations of a single color (pink, rose, burgundy, white) is more satisfying than using many different colors. Let your taste be the guide – just think about it instead of randomly grabbing whatever catches your eye at the nursery. Plant selection-It’s important to select bedding plants that will perform well in La & tolerate the extreme heat of our coming summer. Also, tolerance to insects and diseases needs to be a characteristic of the bedding plants you select. Choose plants that will do well in the location where you intend to plant them. You can choose from a tremendous selection of bedding plants for sunny areas that receive six hours or more of direct sunlight. Commonly available choices include rudbeckia, periwinkle, marigold, Profusion zinnia, blue daze, narrow-leaf zinnia, dwarf lantana, salvia, torenia, purslane, pentas, sun-tolerant coleus, balsam, gaillardia, melampodium, cleome & celosia. In shadier areas that receive two to four hours of morning sun, excellent plants to use include impatiens, wax begonias, caladiums, coleus, torenia, polka dot plant & browallia. Check the labels on the plants you’re considering for how tall they’ll grow because this is very important to how you will use them. It’s not at all unusual for bedding plants to exceed the size on the tag in our area because of our long growing season & fertile soils, but it’s a good guide. Bed preparation-How bedding plants perform in your landscape de- pends very much on how well you prepare the beds prior to planting. There are just a few key steps, but they are important: Remove any existing weeds. Make sure you take out the roots, especially for persistent weeds like Bermuda, nut, torpedo grasses, dollarweed, or oxalis. A good alternative to hand removal is to spray with herbicide glyphosate (Eraser, Roundup, Killzall, Grass & Weed Killer or others) 10-14 days prior to planting. This herbicide will kill the tops & roots of weeds & does not leave a residue in the soil. Do not get it on the foliage of desirable plants nearby, however. Turn the soil thoroughly. You may use a shovel, spade, garden fork or tiller, but make sure you dig down at least 8 inches. Do this when the soil is moist but not wet. Spread a 2- to 3-inch layer of organic matter such as compost (this is best), peat moss or aged manure over the area. Then sprinkle on a general-purpose fertilizer following label directions. If your soil is very heavy & clayey, you may also add several inches of sand and/or finely ground pine bark at this time. Thoroughly incorporate everything into the bed. Rake the bed smooth. It should appear slightly raised. This is good because it improves drainage. Alternatively, you can build a raised bed about 8 to 12 inches deep and fill it with a blended topsoil or garden soil mix. Lay out the individual plants at the proper spacing and arrangement you desire, & then plant them. The top of the transplant’s root ball should be level with the soil of the bed. Mulch. I mean it. This is very important to minimizing your future maintenance. The mulch suppresses weeds, maintains soil moisture & keeps the soil in the loose condition you worked so hard to achieve. A 2- to 3-inch layer of leaves (oak leaves are great), bark, pine needles or almost anything along those lines will work well. Water thoroughly to settle everything in, & you are done.