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Summer Planting and Planning
by Sally Snipes and Carol Nagy Jacklin
Summer Planting
If you have not planted a vegetable garden, there is still time. In fact, this is the best time to transplant hot-weather vegetables such as pepper, tomato and
eggplant plants into your garden from your own seedlings or plants from the garden centers and nurseries.
When you do bring up plants from nurseries in other climate zones, be sure to give them a couple of sheltered nights to harden them up to our cooler mountain evenings.
Now is the best time to plant big seeds. Big-seed vegetables include beans, pumpkins, corn and squash. These all do best when the seeds are planted directly in the warm garden soil, after nighttime temperatures are past chilly. Plant beans in "hills." An elevated mound of enriched soil, or hill, planted with three to five seeds will ensure good drainage and a good start for your own quickly growing bean stalks. Corn is best planted if you have lots of room, because it needs to be wind-pollinated by other corn. If you have only room for one or two dozen plants, they are unlikely to get fully pollinated, and you will end up with empty kernels.
There is also time to plant your summer flower garden. Heat-loving summer annuals and perennial flowers can be planted now, from six-packs or seeds. There are tall ones and ground-covers available in every color or the rainbow. Sunflowers, cosmos, four o’clocks, petunias (old-fashioned ones and many new varieties), marigolds and zinnias are a few of the annual favorites. Perennial favorites include hardy geraniums (cranesbills), cone flowers, coreopsis, penstemon, Shasta daisies and many salvias (sages). A trip to the garden center or nursery of your choice will give you lots of choices of form and color.
Summer Planning
After the rush of spring flowers is a good time to take a look at your garden. Are there areas you’d like to improve? Is it everything you like it to be?
Garden design can be done in many ways. One way is to think of your garden as a room or a series of rooms. Do you have the ground covering, the walls, and the ceiling as you like?
If the "walls" need work, you might want to look into the many vines for sun and shade available, or a tree might need to be planted in a corner here or there.
Another way to think about garden design is the three "Bs." Every garden area needs (1) backbone: large trees or shrubs, or fences; (2) binders: ground cover to tie things together; and (3) bursts: color or texture, a water fountain or seating area to give the garden visual excitement and interest. Are any of these Bs missing from an area of your garden?
Decide on an area you would like to improve. You might decide you need binders, or vertical structures, or bursts. A bench or garden sculpture might be the element needed. A vertical structure such as an arch and vine might make all the difference, or a particular plant might be the solution to your needs.
Scout around your own garden. What plants are doing well? Repeating the same plant often gives a garden a "wow factor" a single plant can not achieve.
Scout around your neighborhood. What plants do you see that you really like? If they are doing well in a neighbor’s garden, they are likely to do well in yours.
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