抖阴ap

We’re finally into summer and you’re feeling fine. The kitchen garden is packed with promise, the border beds are brimming with colorful flowers, and the lawn is — well, if not lush, then acceptable by Colorado standards. But as you recline on your chaise, ponder these bits of advice on how to keep your yard and garden thriving the rest of the summer.

Vegetables

Get a second helping

From the middle to the end of July,
you can plant a second vegetable garden,
a consolation for those of us who
didn’t quite catch the few days this
spring that weren’t too cold, too hot,
or too wet. Cool-season crops will get
you a sweet harvest when the days get
crisp.

As daytime temperatures drop into
autumn, most cool-season vegetables
begin maturing, and the trend toward
chilly means those plants aren’t suffering
hot flashes as they reach their
peak.

Beets, carrots, kale, lettuce, broccoli,
spinach, turnips and peas can be planted
directly into the soil through mid-
August. The key is to plant fast-maturing
vegetables and varieties to bring a
harvest in before the truly cold weather
arrives.

With cool-season veggies like broccoli
raab, bok choi or others, beware
the hazards of a hot Colorado summer.
Prepare your garden by removing
summer crop residues and weed
growth, then turn compost into the
soil to a depth of 6 to 8 inches. You
can help keep the soil from drying out
with a light mulch of compost over
the seed row.

Lettuce, peas and spinach need cool
shade for germination at this time, so
plant them under taller summer crops
-say, beans or tomatoes- that will
be finished with the first frost. Plant
the seeds slightly deeper than you
would in spring to take advantage of
moister soil.

Flowers

Finally, an easy chore

Deadheading can be done while
you’re strolling among your blooms,
chatting up the bees and admiring
your handiwork. Why do it? It’ll
give you more flowers and a longer
show. Remove faded blooms to keep
plants flowering, prevent unwanted
seedlings, or give the garden a tidy
appearance.

And it’s easy: Deadhead plants with
multiple stems, such as salvia, by snipping
the stem back to the first leaf or
group of leaves. On plants with stems
of several flowers opening at different
times, such as daylilies, clip each
bloom as it fades, then cut the entire
stem after all flowers are finished.
Pinch the blossoms of flowers such as
dahlias, geraniums, marigolds and
snapdragons, pansies, salvias, zinnias,
yarrow, echinacea, or coreopsis where
they meet the stem to keep them in
bloom all season.

Trees

Pamper your shade producers

Watch for trees with crispy, dry
leaves. Though winter is a tough time
to think of watering trees, their roots
can dehydrate and die in the chill,
dry soil that last winter’s drought
left. When this happens, trees show
the result in midsummer as scorched
foliage.

When trees fail to develop enough
fine roots to support summer’s lush
canopies, their leaves lose water faster
than the stunted root system can replace
it. Leaf tips will brown or the
leaves will drop from the tree. To tell
leaf scorch from disease, look for evenly
discolored spots on leaves, typically
from the tips inward. These spots will
have no rings, halos or fruiting bodies
(if you see any of those things, you
should suspect fungus or bacteria). On
pines suffering from a dry winter, needles
will be brown with no rings or
banding-and they’ll be brittle and
dry.

You can’t cure the tree, but you can
prepare to help it be healthier next
year. Set yourself up with a calendar
that lists your trees and notes which
ones are struggling now. (No, you
probably won’t remember which ones
in winter.) That way, you can be sure
every individual in your own urban
forest gets deep watered to a depth of
12 to 18 inches, once per month, come
the cold dry months. July and August
are a good time to keep an eye out for
sales on soaker hoses or root-waterers.

Lawns

Splendor in what grass?

Now that it’s hot outside, lawns are
checking out for the season. Huge
brown spots are growing in yards, and in
most cases, the culprit isn’t disease or
bugs-it’s a lack of water. But turning
up the irrigation isn’t always the answer,
because when it comes to watering
lawns, coverage is everything.

Gaps in irrigation coverage from tilted
heads, insufficient throw of water, and
sprinkler heads that are broken or pointing
the wrong way all can lead to brownouts
in the lawn. Turn the sprinkler system
on to closely examine the toss of water
from each head. If you’re standing behind
a sprinkler head, it’s easy to tell if
it’s pointed the wrong way-you’ll be
getting a shower. So choose a warm day
to walk from head to head to check their
direction.

Look to see if the water from one head
is reaching the sprinkler next to it.
That’s called head-to-head coverage,
and it’s critical for good irrigation. If
your sprinklers don’t throw far enough,
consider adding more heads.

Lawns don’t need water every day. If
you’re running your sprinklers that often,
you may need professional help.
Here’s one way to check to see if your
lawn’s getting drinks frequently enough:
Walk across it the afternoon before
you’re going to irrigate. If your footprints
stay visible for 30 minutes or longer,
the grass is drying out too much in between
watering.

Finally, remember to water during the
cool of the early morning or late
evening.

Containers

The summer switcheroo

When August does roll in, treat yourself
to a fall container makeover.
Though that splash of color near your
doorstep looks good now, in about six
weeks as summer wanes and temperatures
cool, you’ll want a fresh look. Planted
in August, containers have time to fill
out and look their best for fall.
Shopping when fall bedding plants arrive
in garden centers is the perfect
pick-me-up during the dog days of summer.
But be aware that not all plants can
take the frost. Look for those with a
tough disposition. Here are a few to try.