Lawn and Garden Tips for July

Cobb County Extension staff member Louise Weyer assembles a list each month of tips for keeping your lawn and landscape in good order. As summer heads into high gear, following Louise's checklist of tasks can  improve the odds of your yard's shining through to fall.

Louise's Tips for Trees and Shrubs for July includes this information:

• Spring-planted trees and shrubs need an inch of water each week. Irrigate in dry weather.
• Mature trees need deep watering; they can lose leaves if they have inadequate water.
• Prune Knock-out roses.
• Remove dry flowers from butterfly bush to encourage more blooms, and remove flowers from shrub roses as they fade.
• Remove suckers from the base of cherry, apple, crape myrtle, dogwood, and crabapple trees.

For annuals and perennials:

• Plant zinnia seeds for late-summer blooms.
• Coleus and caladiums grow well through September; they can be planted now.
• Remove faded blooms and damaged or yellowing leaves on annuals and perennials.
• Mulch to retain moisture, control soil temperatures and diseases.

Turf:

• Now is the time to establish new sod for warm season turfgrasses: Bermudagrass, Zoysia, Centipede, St. Augustine. 
• Lay pieces of sod in bare spots in the lawn if irrigation is available, preparing the soil 6-inches deep in before setting in the new pieces.
• Use core-aerator to reduce compaction in lawns of warm-season turfgrasses.
• Do not fertilize Fescue lawns.
• Sharpen mower blades!
• Cicada-killers, which are large, non-agressive wasps with underground tunnels, do no damage to turf; no need to spray.

Vegetables:

• Harvest vegetables regularly to prolong production.
• Harvest herbs for drying.
• Plant second crops of bush beans, cucumbers, okra, peppers, tomato.
• Plan for the fall vegetable garden.
• Watch for pests in the garden.
• Read UGA's "Georgia Home Grown Tomatoes," by Extension Horticulturist Robert Westerfield.

There is more, of course, ranging from ways to manage water use in the landscape, to non-native invasive plants, to pesticide disposal, and more.

For the Louise's full list, go to the Cobb County Extension home page, select the link to Agriculture and Natural Resources, then select the link at the top of that page to the Cobb County Extension Publications and Articles. Louise's Tips for each month are linked at the top left corner of the table of publications.