July Mountain Gardening Checklist: Planting, Maintenance, and Pest Control

PLANTING

Daylilies

These heat-loving perennials come in every shade of apricot, lavender, orange, pink, purple, red, and yellow. Choose from hundreds of varieties, including miniatures or flowers with contrasting centers, ruffled edges, and broad or narrow petals. Try the long-blooming Starburst series: yellow-and-red 'Black-eyed Stella'; yellow 'Happy Returns' and 'Stella de Oro'; and red 'Pardon Me'. Daylilies thrive in soil amended with plenty of organic matter and produce the most blooms with adequate water (don't let soil dry out).

Add Heat Lovers

Many perennials drop buds and stop blooming in July's high temperatures. Perk up your garden with heat-tolerant flowers. For irrigated beds, plant compass plant (Silphium laciniatum), coreopsis, ox-eye sunflower, purple coneflower, rudbeckia, and Shasta daisy. In dry gardens, grow Blackfoot daisy, blanket flower, chocolate flower (Berlandiera lyrata), golden aster (Heterotheca villosa), and pinnate prairie coneflower (Ratibida pinnata).

Start Morning Glories

Sow seeds of these fast-growing, heat-loving annual vines next to fences and trellises for showy, trumpet-shaped flowers later this summer. To speed sprouting, nick each seed with toenail clippers and soak in water overnight before sowing. Look for Ipomoea cultivars in colors like cherry rose and white 'Rosita'; reddish 'Scarlett O'Hara'; ruffled magenta 'Sunrise Serenade'; and tricolored lavender, magenta, and purple Early Call mix.

Try Sedums

Plant wherever you need instant color that returns yearly. All sedums have handsome succulent foliage and late-season bloom clusters that persist through winter as dried flowers. 'Autumn Joy' is the gold standard, but new varieties appear each season. 'Frosty Morn' and 'Lajos' have variegated foliage; 'Black Jack', 'Lynda Windsor', and 'Purple Emperor' have burgundy to purple foliage; 'Stardust' has white flowers.

MAINTENANCE

Care for Containers

Monitor soil moisture twice daily. When soil is almost dry, water until it leaks from drainage holes (test to ensure thorough moisture). Add a few drops of liquid fertilizer to water when temperatures exceed 80°F. Rotate containers frequently for even sunlight (for heavy pots, use stands with casters).

Deadhead Flowers

As flowers fade, snip off individual blossoms or cut spikes and clusters back to a new bud or healthy leaves. When the whole plant looks unkempt, cut stems to basal foliage. Don't deadhead varieties grown for attractive seed heads, such as Baptisia, bear's breech, butterfly weed, gayfeather, and sea lavender. When insects, powdery mildew, or rust damage the following plants, cut them to the ground: columbine, cranesbill, hollyhock, lady's-mantle, lamb's ears, Shasta daisy, and summer phlox.

Green Up Lawns

Bluegrass goes dormant and turns brown when temperatures regularly exceed 90°F. If allowed to stay green, temporarily increase irrigation to every other day. For brown patches, set a sprinkler for extra water. You can also stop fertilizing, raise mowing height to 3 inches, and mow more frequently to prevent leaf scorch. Dormant bluegrass generally greens up again in late summer.

Divide Irises

Divide bearded irises while semidormant, about six weeks after blooming ends. Use a spading fork to dig up the entire clump, snap or cut off each leaf fan with 3-4 inches of thick horizontal rhizome attached. Trim leaf fans to 6 inches. Amend soil with 4 inches of compost and a handful of fertilizer. Dig a shallow basin, set rhizomes leaf fans pointing outward in a circle. Cover downward roots and bury rhizome with a shallow soil layer.

Prevent Fertilizer Burn

Use care when applying liquid or granular fertilizer when daytime temperatures exceed 90°F to avoid scorching foliage or killing plants. Apply on cloudy days early morning, late day, or when rain/cool weather is forecast. Follow label directions exactly; don't exceed recommended amounts. If no rain, water well and rinse liquid products off foliage.

Water

All landscape plants, including lawns and xeriscapes, require careful soil moisture monitoring during prolonged hot, dry spells. Once a week, check soil every few feet with a moisture monitor (available at garden centers). If soil is dry several inches deep, water more often until weather cools. Allow xeriscapes to dry thoroughly between waterings.

PEST CONTROL

Slugs and Snails

These pests hitchhike as eggs on nursery stock. Look for gray slugs and brown snails around compost bins and irrigated garden areas, especially early morning, evening, and cool, overcast, or rainy days. Destroy them or bag and trash. To attract and drown, sink a shallow dish of beer in soil around favorite plants; clean regularly.

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