August garden chores
This is the time of year -- before fall makes its entrance -- when it is hard to get up the energy to go out into the garden.
It is hot and dry and there is so much to do. And so many mosquitoes.
If I want to feel guilty about all the I am NOT doing in the garden, I can always count on my friends and fellow bloggers Susan Harris and Margaret Roach, who religiously post their monthly list of garden chores.
Susan, who blogs for Behnke's in Beltsville and Homestead Gardens in Davidsonville, is invaluable to the Maryland gardener because she gardens more or less in our micro-climate.
Margaret's list is always thorough, but she gardens in upstate New York.
In any case, these are some of the things I haven't gotten done this month. My thanks to Susan and Margaret.
I haven't removed the spent blooms on my crepe myrtle to encourage more blooms. (I haven't dead-headed much of anything.)
Nor have I cut back the bloomed-out flower stems on my hosta.
I haven't killed off the weeds in my lawn, in preparation for seeding in late September.
I need to clear away the browned foliage on my daylilies and then transplant some of them.
I haven't placed my spring bulb order.
And I need to get some water into my compost pile. Without any rain -- and there has been little or none this summer -- it won't decompose.
There. At least I made a list....
Comments
Another perspective is Gene Sumi's - he's the guru at Homestead and I wrote up his August Gardening TIps on the Homestead blog - don't miss them!
http://blog.homesteadgardens.com/?p=11761
Posted by: Susan Harris | August 12, 2011 4:21 PM
Little or no rain? When we returned from vacation we had three inches in our rain gauge! I guess we live in different microclimates, Susan.
We've had a couple of cloud bursts around here, too. Just not those nice, long gentle rains that can be such a relief. -- Susan
Posted by: Dahlink | August 13, 2011 7:42 AM
I'm in the UK and August frustrates me incredibly in the garden.
The firework colour display of all my plants faded away in June and in August the garden only have various shades of green !
Posted by: mulberry | August 13, 2011 6:20 PM