Bonnie Preston was our featured speaker last month and we had a great time listening to all her advice with what to plant and how to design our areas. She showed us photographs of some of the gardens she has designed and they were gorgeous. Thank you Bonnie for a really interesting meeting.
As we are going out and buying annuals for our garden, here are a few tips to keep them in tip top shape for the season:
• Prepare the soil by cleaning out all the weeds and adding organic matter.
• Purchase annuals without flowers so that you can enjoy the blooms longer. Choose shorter bushy plants because the larger ones are more established already and may not transplant as well. If you do buy plants that have flowers already, pinch them off to encourage the plant to develop good roots first. Pinching out the first flowers will also result in bushier plants.
• A dark green color is generally a good indicator of a strong healthy plant. (Make sure that they are not light colored or yellowing. Nor should they have brown patches)
• Plant to the depth they were in the six packs and water them in thoroughly. Go back the next day and water again. Do not rush to plant them outside, wait until the night time temperatures are in the 50Fs. Remember that our last frost date in Fulton County is around the last week in May. Cool weather annuals such as alyssum and pansies can be set out earlier but impatiens will sulk if put out too soon and they may not recover.
• Keep up with watering, plants usually need about one inch of water a week but those in containers may need to be watered daily or even more than once a day.
• In early summer as the plants start forming flower buds begin a fertilizer program using a balanced formula such as 10-10-10. Read the label and apply as the manufacturer suggests throughout the summer and early fall. If you have some annuals that are slow to flower use a formula such as a 15-30-15 to stimulate flower production.
• In midsummer annuals with lots of tiny flowers such as alyssum start to look a little ragged and they will benefit from being cut back by a third to a half. Use this technique for alyssum, coreopsis, bachelor’s button, snapdragons and sweet William. Give them a dose of liquid fertilizer and they will set new buds very quickly. If your petunias are starting to get leggy with blooms just at the ends try cutting them back by half, they will also set out new growth and flowers and you will have a more compact plant full of flowers in no time.
• Deadhead your plants. Although there are annuals that are self-cleaning (begonias and calibrachoas for example) most will bloom better if you take off the dead flowers regularly. Pinch by hand or use sharp scissors or pruners and remove all the stem to keep the plant looking tidy.
• Towards the end of summer let some of your plants go to seed. Cut off the dead zinnia, marigold and gazania flowers and store them in a paper bag to reseed next year. If they are hybrid plants they may not come true to the parent but flowers are welcome in all colors and sizes – and the butterflies love them. Let the seeds of cosmos fall to the ground where they will sprout next year.
Come see our flower show at the Northville Public Library on June 8, 9 and 10. Our theme is ‘Flower Arranging by the Books’ and features arrangements inspired by Heidi by Johanna Spyri, Pinochoccio by C. Collodi, Charlotte’s Webb by E.B. White and Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. Our members are very talented so come, learn and enjoy. As always, we thank Michael Burnett our Library Director for agreeing to host our flower show.
On June 2 our club will be taking a trip to tour Tom and Kathy Oughton’s gardens in Ephrata, we will have lunch and install our officers for the coming year before our hiatus in the summer.
As always, questions and comments can be sent to POBox 675, Northville NY.
• Prepare the soil by cleaning out all the weeds and adding organic matter.
• Purchase annuals without flowers so that you can enjoy the blooms longer. Choose shorter bushy plants because the larger ones are more established already and may not transplant as well. If you do buy plants that have flowers already, pinch them off to encourage the plant to develop good roots first. Pinching out the first flowers will also result in bushier plants.
• Plant to the depth they were in the six packs and water them in thoroughly. Go back the next day and water again. Do not rush to plant them outside, wait until the night time temperatures are in the 50Fs. Remember that our last frost date in Fulton County is around the last week in May. Cool weather annuals such as alyssum and pansies can be set out earlier but impatiens will sulk if put out too soon and they may not recover.
• Keep up with watering, plants usually need about one inch of water a week but those in containers may need to be watered daily or even more than once a day.
• In midsummer annuals with lots of tiny flowers such as alyssum start to look a little ragged and they will benefit from being cut back by a third to a half. Use this technique for alyssum, coreopsis, bachelor’s button, snapdragons and sweet William. Give them a dose of liquid fertilizer and they will set new buds very quickly. If your petunias are starting to get leggy with blooms just at the ends try cutting them back by half, they will also set out new growth and flowers and you will have a more compact plant full of flowers in no time.
• Towards the end of summer let some of your plants go to seed. Cut off the dead zinnia, marigold and gazania flowers and store them in a paper bag to reseed next year. If they are hybrid plants they may not come true to the parent but flowers are welcome in all colors and sizes – and the butterflies love them. Let the seeds of cosmos fall to the ground where they will sprout next year.
Come see our flower show at the Northville Public Library on June 8, 9 and 10. Our theme is ‘Flower Arranging by the Books’ and features arrangements inspired by Heidi by Johanna Spyri, Pinochoccio by C. Collodi, Charlotte’s Webb by E.B. White and Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. Our members are very talented so come, learn and enjoy. As always, we thank Michael Burnett our Library Director for agreeing to host our flower show.
On June 2 our club will be taking a trip to tour Tom and Kathy Oughton’s gardens in Ephrata, we will have lunch and install our officers for the coming year before our hiatus in the summer.
As always, questions and comments can be sent to POBox 675, Northville NY.
