By Dan Weintritt and Friends
Adapted from Month-by-Month Gardening in Louisiana by Dan Gill
Spring temperatures transition to summer heat throughout this month. Watering cycles for new transplants can transition from regular light watering to periodic deep soaking once or twice a week. Deep, infrequent watering will encourage new roots to push deeper into the soil to find water, now that the surface will be drying more rapidly.
If new transplants are struggling and wilting constantly, consider adding pine straw mulch to your beds. This will trap more moisture in the soil, and it also regulates soil temperature, shading those tender, emergent roots. It has the added benefit of reducing unwanted invasive weeds.
Containerized plants should be kept evenly moist. those are drying quickly, or those that will have to make the summer in a pot rather than be planted in the garden could be bumped up into a larger pot (never more than 2" wider than its existing pot; bump up incrementally), and/or moved to an area of a few hours of morning sun and afternoon shade.
Lots of plants are going on sale at this time of year. Consider whether you will have time to water the garden all summer if you plant now. Often, it is better to move the plant into a bigger pot (4" into quarts, quarts into gallons, gallons into 3-gallons, etc.), and moving the plant to a morning-only sun location for summer, until it can be planted in fall when cooler weather returns.
Blueberries and dewberries are ripening; blackberries are soon to follow. The birds will eat them before they are ripe enough for our palates; net your fruit bushes if you wish to save the harvest for yourself, or enjoy watching them help themselves to the bounty they have provided for you.
Insect pressure on plants is increasing now. Consider that in the native garden, insects are not pests; they are food for predators. If you are having severe difficulties with aphids, mealybugs, caterpillars and such, consider finding adding more diverse plants to attract insect predators, and trees, shrubs, and grasses to provide habitat to birds who will feed on unwanted visitors.
Begin deadheading (removing seedpods of spent flowers) spring bloomers for increased bloom. Coneflowers, Indian Pinks, Stokes' Asters, and others can put out more blooms if they are deadheaded occasionally. Later in fall, we will leave seedheads on these plants for hungry migrating birds. Seeds for sowing are best harvested when just-ripe (husks just starting to dry and become papery, before they split and start to spread their seed).
While we pruned dormant, deciduous woody trees and shrubs in winter, now is a great time to start pruning both evergreen plants and spring-flowering shrubs that need it. This is the time of year, for example, that I shape up the gigantic dwarf yaupon that is crowding my air conditioner unit. The male plant has pollinated the other hollies in my yard, and now I can cut it back to give the HVAC the air circulation it needs to operate efficiently for summer.
Yellow leaves during summer heat can be more difficult to diagnose, but if trees and shrubs are showing signs of yellowing or curling now, there may be a nutrient deficiency. An example is chlorosis caused by iron deficiency. This is a good time to send off a soil test kit to the LSU AgCenter for analysis. You can decide whether to amend your soil, or use different plants in the future. Mineral soil amendments are best applied in fall, so getting results going will give you time to plan. Some plants like blueberries need more acidic soil than what the average garden can provide, so you may choose to add sulfur rather than foregoing blueberries. Never amend your soil without a test stating what and how much amendment is needed, that's pollution.
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