By August the garden is often humming along on autopilot, although sometimes the garden (or more likely the gardener) feels tired by late summer. This year, July only got a bit of rain on the last day. The current forecast for the remainder of August is cooler than normal— great for the cool-season vegetable starts, but not so encouraging for the warm season crops that have just started to pump out vegetables like zucchini, beans and tomatoes.
This is a time to reflect on garden priorities. What thrives in your garden? Do you have an intention or a vision for it? Are you in a phase of expansion or contraction? This changes with how the garden matures and ages along with our own interests and energy levels. Walk around and make notes. Beth Benjamin, one of my favorite garden teachers from when I was an apprentice at Camp Joy, in the Santa Cruz Mountains, always said, “The garden is forgiving. Next year we can try again or change how we garden.”
Garden Chores
Shrubs and Trees: Don’t add any more fertilizer that is high in nitrogen to shrubs and trees. Plants need to harden off before the winter cold settles in. All-purpose natural fertilizer with fertilizer ratios in single digits are okay. Apply the last fertilizer to roses by mid-August. Aged compost is also okay.
Perennials: Continue deadheading, ease up on watering and fertilizing. Consider which large perennials could be divided and moved around to fill in gaps in the garden. Determine which plants are aligned with your watering regime. Plan to move or divide perennials in September or October.
Rockrose: They typical rock rose, Cistus hybridus tops out at 3 ft. But, here in Jefferson County can grow to 5 ft. and sprawl. Older shrubs can be completely renovated. Remove dead branches and then prune with a combination of thinning and heading cuts. Sometimes these plants can be pruned into artistic sculptural forms. Remove splayed and sprawling branches.
Wisteria: flowers better if pruned regularly. Prune the vine now after flowering and also when the vines are dormant in January/February. Now cut back new growth, leaving five or six leaves on a branch. This will encourage flower buds. In the winter cut back to three buds. These become spurs that will flower next year.
Raspberries: Summer bearing canes (floricanes) that have finished fruiting on the previous seasons wood. Cut these canes to the ground and remove. Any new growth thinner than a pencil should be prune to the ground. Then look at the canes that started this year—primocanes. Select 6-8 canes per plant spaced about 3-4 inches apart. When the plants go dormant in winter cut these canes back to just above top wire. These will produce lateral flowering and fruiting branches next summer.
Fruit Tree late summer pruning: Plum and cherry. Did your trees grow vigorously this summer? If so, prune back branches that pumped out two feet or more new growth. This can reduce next year’s vegetative vigor and encourage fruit buds. But if the tree grew moderately, then wait until winter or even after next year’s flowering before pruning. Poorly executed summer pruning can stunt a tree.
Apples: Sometimes apples get in a cycle of over-producing fruit one year and then the next one the tree is recuperating and has no fruit. Biennial fruit-bearing can happen for numerous reasons. If too many fruit form one year and are not thinned out then the tree doesn’t have the energy to form many flowers the next year. Some apple varieties like Honeycrisp and heirloom Brambley Seedling are naturally biennial fruiting. Other trees fall into this pattern through lack of nutrients, irregular watering, or one winter frost destroys the blooms. RHS always has good information. Thinning flowers (once you confirm they are pollinated) is more effective than thinning young fruit. Advanced gardeners can look at the Royal Horticulture Society’s post on summer pruning of apples and pears.
Sustainable Garden Design 