Make Your Own Mid-Summer Garden Calendar©

The gardens are looking good, you have been harvesting some vegetables and cut flowers, the days are long and lazy and hot, hot, hot so make sure you wear a hat out in the garden, sun screen and plan your day for early morning garden chores from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. whenever possible.

This is also the time for vacations and remember all the hard work you did to get these gardens looking so good so ask a neighbor to continue the watering and volunteer to water their garden when they go on holiday.

This is the time of year you raise you mower blade at least an inch higher to keep your lovely lawns from burning up and if you have a water ban in your community sacrifice you lawn instead of your plants and newly planted trees and shrubs.

Continue looking for pests and especially under the leaves of your plants where they love to hide out from you.

To encourage a second blooming of your flowers then keep dead heading them and keep pinching back your asters and mums and they will reward you with lovely rounded bushes.

Many plants go dormant about this time, such as poppies and bleeding hearts and this is the time to prune them back. Take the time to check out your other perennials such as hostas or any other plants that are crowding out other plants and prune them back.

Hopefully you will have your weeding under control by now, but keep checking and keeping pulling and hoeing any you see as it will stimulate your plants and conserve on water.

This is the time of year if start thinking about what flowers need to be put in to give me any new color I want in the gardens and this is the time of year I start making out my garden budget for next year. It is also the time of the year I start making my lists for bulbs I want to plant in the fall.

It is also the time of year I sit on my screened in patio with a good book, ceiling fans whirling, a nice glass of wine and enjoy the Cottage Garden.