By Dan Weintritt and Friends
Adapted from Month-by-Month Gardening in Louisiana by Dan Gill
Deal with unwanted invasive plants quickly, before they set seed and spread through the garden! When lifting weeds, try to ensure that you do not shake their seeds back into the garden. Having a bucket or grocery bag handy really helps with this.
It is time to stop planting containerized plants and make a plan to-over-summer stragglers or late acquisitions, to keep alive for fall planting. Move container plants into larger pots, and place in shade, if you haven't already. Add a timer and sprinkler system to automatically water container plants over the summer when you are away from home for a week or more.
Some tall rosette plants, like Rudbeckias, Gaura, and Rattlesnake Master, may be starting to flop. If you did not or do not want to stake or cage the plants, cutting the flowering stems in half will make them stouter, prettier, and may encourage more blooms for summer. If Texas Star Hibiscus plants were not pinched in Spring, and are sparse with few blooms, consider cutting in half now. Losing the few flower buds you have now is a small sacrifice for the abundance to follow, as the plant has months of bloom left.
Tall fall-blooming perennials such as Ironweed, Goldenrod, and Joe-Pye Weed can be pinched by a third now to create plants that are stockier and less floppy in fall. Pinching now allows Tall Ironweed to grow back to about a six-foot plant by its bloom time in the fall. Pinching in July will result in a plant about 4-5' tall when it blooms. Pinch fall-blooming plants no later than July 4.
Continue to deadhead and look for ripening seedpods on milkweeds, all Asters (e.g., coneflowers, rudbeckias, gaillairdias), Verbenas, and Basketflower. Light deadheading can elongate flowering times. Removing seed from flowering bulb plants will especially help them to store more of their energy and return even better next year.
Summer blooming annuals can continue to be directly sown into beds. Planting a few sunflower seeds each month will ensure continued blooms through fall.
If new transplants continue to wilt and struggle, consider that hand-watering may not be enough. Think about installing a soaker hose on a timer where needed to avoid mortality from summer heat. This may be especially important for larger plants like trees and shrubs, whose broad root systems are too extensive to water with just a hose. Magnolias are especially sensitive to summer droughts.
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