Garden Tips for August

August can be a light work month in the garden. Continue to repair water leaks and keep up with warm season weeds. August is also perfect for the following tasks:

Planting

This is the big month to plant seeds for cool season vegetables such as Asian greens, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, leek, lettuce, pea, spinach and Swiss chard. You can also direct-seed another crop of beans.

You can plant some ornamentals, but it will be a lot easier on you and them if you wait until fall. Planting during August heat will require daily watering.

Maintaining

Citrus requires even steady moisture during these hot months and must be watered regularly. Other plants, like many California natives, can manage on less water. Narrow-leaf milkweed (Asclepias fascicularis) might be in full bloom or producing seeds vigorously.

Don't worry about aphids, red milkweed bugs or other insects on your milkweed; it can handle it. And you don't want to destroy monarch eggs by going after pest insects.

If your garden is less than three years old, don't expect the new plants to be tolerant of drought. They will continue to need extra TLC until their roots are established.

Deep soaking and occasional extra overhead sprinkles for a few plants is the best practice. If you live in a fire prone area, keep your plants watered so they will help slow down wildfires and reduce flying embers.

Cut back and divide your iris if you haven't already done so. Prune apricot, olive and oleanders, but avoid pruning so much you get sunburn on newer branches. Continue to deadhead roses and remove suckers and unwanted branches.

Open rose bushes up to increase air circulation through the shrub. Remember to use a mosquito larvicide (BTi) anywhere there will be standing water, even in plant trays, to avoid mosquito breeding.

Skip the fertilizer during the hottest part of summer, especially high-nitrogen products. Let everything rest a little, including yourself.

Towards the end of the month, you can start using a pre-emergent to impede germination of cool season weeds. If you have only a few weeds, hoe or dig them out instead of spraying, or investigate where the water supporting the weeds is coming from and make a change in your irrigation practices if you can.

Conserving

Even in years with adequate precipitation, we can still consider removing or reducing lawn. Beyond the water saving, we can support a wider range of native and beneficial wildlife, including pollinators, if we include more variety of shrubs and perennials, especially native, in our yards. If you need to green patch in summer, consider using a ground cover like Lippia nodiflora.

The first step in managing diseases and pest insects is identification. That's so you don't accidentally do more harm than good. A good website to consult is https://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/menu.homegarden.html.

Ornamental plants can tolerate some insect damage, and those insects can be bird attractants (food). The exception is Argentine and other non-native ants; control those throughout the garden with ant bait products, switching the active ingredient every few months.

Planning any upgrades or changes to your garden for fall? Consider creating a rain garden, seasonal creek, or swale to capture and hold onsite storm water. Gardens with a big picture approach to both drought and flooding – in other words, California's usual weather swings, are resilient and provide value to humans and wildlife every year no matter what the weather.

Consider making your garden, even in the city, a connection for migrating beneficial wildlife. Can you map out a path migrating Monarchs might be able to take through your neighborhood? Is there a neighbor you can give a native milkweed to?

It's okay to leave dried flowers on native plants. Finches and other birds will thank you for the seed they can eat. If you want to attract more birds and pollinators, it's fine to be less fussy about trimming every plant and removing every brown stem.

I invite you to push your own boundaries, to improve the efficiency and usefulness of the garden, and to share it a little more. It's less work too.

Questions?

For more information, call the Master Gardeners at:

Tulare County – (559) 684-3325, Tuesdays and Thursdays 9:30-11:30 a.m.

Kings County – (559) 852-2736, Thursday only, 9:30-11:30 a.m.

You can also visit the Master Gardeners website for past articles, or to sign up for their e-newsletter. You can also email your questions to: https://ucanr.edu/sites/UC_Master_Gardeners/

Master Gardeners are on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/mgtularekings14/ and on Instagram at: @mgtularekings