Adjusting our Gardening Practices

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Zinnias are available in a range of colors and tolerate hot, dry conditions.

How to best manage heat and drought to protect your flowers.

We may need to rethink what we plant and how we care for our flowers to combat the heat. Listed below are a few practices that can increase your gardening success in hot, dry temperatures:

1.Kill the weeds. Weeds are water thieves and will rob your plants of water and nutrients.

2.Improve the soil. Adding 1-2" of organic matter (compost) to the existing soil and turning the soil one shovels depth will give improved results by getting young plants off to a healthy start.

3.Water efficiently. Watering early in the morning provides the greatest advantage to the plants and helps prevent the spread of disease. Water your lawn areas separately and avoid using oscillating sprinklers for your gardens, they lose too much water. Drip irrigation, soaker hoses or other direct soil watering techniques should be applied.

4.Group plants accordingly. Place low water using plants (such as sedum, coneflowers, mums, etc) together. Ditto with high water using plants (hydrangeas, dahlias, impatiens, etc.).

5.Mulch to reduce evaporation. Mulches cool the root zone, reduce weed growth, provide a finished look in addition to slowing the evaporation process. Mulch material should be 2-3" thick.

6.Fertilize regularly. Though adding compost at the beginning of the growing season will greatly assist the young plants, they will need continued nourishment throughout the season with either applications of liquid or granular fertilizers.

7.Remove any dead or dying leaves or stems and deadhead regularly. These two simple maintenance practices greatly reduces the odds for disease and channels the plant's energies into producing additional flowers.