Houston July Garden Care

July garden time! Who else is excited to get out there?! No?? It’s hot you say. Yeah.

This is the time of year to pull weeds early in the morning or after a nice rain shower. It is hot and you need to be careful.

If you managed to keep up with your weeding, hopefully it’s not too bad. I’m not gonna lie, we still have way more weeds than I care to admit. At this point if I get them before they flower and go to seed I call it a win!

Aside from weekly mowing everything else should be pretty low maintenance or able to be ignored until someone turns the heater off!

---

July Garden Care Checklist:

• Weed as needed
• Check plants and lawn regularly for problems like fungus or insect damage. If you can catch it early it will be easier and cheaper to treat.
• Water, water, water. Your plants need it your house needs it. The rain dances are working! We’ve done well with natural water, so far, this season.
• Hurricane prep – trim back tree limbs and remove dead limbs.

Lawn care:

• Your mower blades should be set to three inches and mow as needed.
• Do not bag your clippings. They decompose quickly and are great nutrition for the soil.
• Continue your fertilizing schedule you began March through May, 1 lb. per 1,000 square feet of lawn or 1 1/2 lb. of slow release nitrogen.
• Add an iron fertilizer throughout the growing season to reduce yellowing.
• Continue watering, ideally early in the day, between 5-9 a.m.
• Apply a pre-emergent as needed to control weeds (remember, these only work on weeds that have not flowered yet)
• The two biggest pest dangers to your lawn are Chinch Bugs and Grubs. Check out the links from the Agrilife Extension if you suspect these are damaging your lawn

Care of Common Houston-Area Plants:

• Dead-head and remove spent blooms to promote more flowering.
• Azaleas
  • Do NOT touch or feed them again until next year!
• Brugmansia (a.k.a. “Angel’s Trumpet”)
  • Feed plants every two weeks during the growing season with a 17-17-17 fertilizer, alternated with a? fertilizer for blooming plants (high middle number (phosphorus). These are very hungry plants!
• Chrysanthemums
  • July 4th is the last time to pinch back blooms for a full bush full of blooms in the fall.
• Gardenias
  • Use a 30-10-10 fertilizer every 4 weeks of the growing season.
• Gladiolus
  • Fertilize when you see flower spikes and after you pick the flowers.  Pinch off faded blooms.
• Mandarin Trees and other Citrus
  • Water if the soil dries out, water should penetrate an inch or so down
  • Fertilize monthly from February to October if your plant is less than two years old, remove suckers as needed.
• Edible Garden
  • Plant your fall garden – you need plants that like it hot and have a short growing cycle, 90 days or less. Transplants tend to do better than starting from seeds for a winter garden.
  • July plants you can start from seed: Beans, Beets, Broccoli, Brussels Sprouts, Cabbage, Carrots, Cauliflower, Eggplant, Okra, Parsnips, Peas, Watermelon, and Zucchini & Summer Squashes.

All right, now it’s time to head outside and get to work!