Summertime Yard Maintenance

With the Summer months comes special care to our yards. The rains have died down to almost no rain. Our plants and lawn go into a conserving mode, as do our bodies when the heat turns on. Here are some yard maintenance tips for the summer..

Grasses

As you may have guessed the ornamental grasses add extra beauty to your yard without extra care. Some are perennial and a few are annual growing grasses. If they are the warm weather type they will weather fine in the heat. You may have to deadhead some of the dead leaves and growth. Be sure to use gloves and hand shears as some of the leaves can cut your skin. If the whole clump of ornamental grass looks too dead or ratty then cut it way back.

Lawns

First of all cut back on fertilizer for your lawns. Fertilizer encourages new growth and summer time is not the time for new growth. Set your mower higher thus it not needing as much water. Lawns will generally grow back after a little browning in the summer. If not you can reseed when they can be watered more again.

Shrubs and Trees

Shrubs and trees add to the comfort and inviting features to your yard. During the summer you may want to add some mulch around the trees and shrubs to maintain the soil moisture and added protection from pests although there is a right and wrong way to mulch. If you apply incorrectly you could encourage pests and fungus and rob your plant of oxygen.

Bulbs and Perennials

Cut any flowers for vases in the morning when the stems are still full of moisture. Deadhead the spent flowers unless you are saving the seeds to plant for next year. Your bulbs may be finished with their spring flowering. Let the bulbs prepare themselves for dormancy.

Annuals

Annuals are wonderful for cut flowers to decorate your home with color. they come in a variety of color, size and texture. If left to reseed themselves they will come back year after year.

It seems like a lot of work to keep up with your landscape but if done systematically you will have plenty of time to sit back and enjoy the summer yourself.

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“And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.”- F.Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby