Mid-Summer Gardening Guide for Orlando, FL

July is the peak time for vegetable harvesting and ornamental flowers blooming, and it’s important to keep things going, despite the heat.  You’ve invested not only money but plenty of time in your garden and landscaping, and care is just as important this Summer as it is when it’s planting time. 

 

Flower Gardens 

• - A general rule of thumb for flowering shrubs is to prune in Summer what blooms before July 4.  For instance, if your hydrangea is fading, and has gotten too large for the space it’s in, cut it back now to keep from cutting off next Spring’s buds. 
• - Deadheading your annual flowers--removing spent blooms--will encourage them to continue to blossom and provide full color until Fall. 

• - Get up early before the temps get too hot and pull the weeds.  If you let them get large enough to flower, you may just be spreading more weed seeds, creating more work for yourself. 
• - Crepe myrtles can rebloom if you can get to the spent blossoms and deadhead them.  Read this guide from Today’s Homeowner before you get the pruning shears to make sure your window of opportunity hasn’t passed. 
• - Many people are going on trips or vacations this time of year.  Don’t leave the garden to just anyone; make sure you get someone with experience to water and pull a few weeds while you’re away.  You don’t want to come home to plants that are dying because they were over- or under-watered.
   

Vegetable Gardens 

• - Dress your veggie rows with a generous layer of compost to fertilize through the rest of the Summer. When you water, the nutrients your plants need will soak into the soil. 
• - The basil and other herbs may have given generously, but don’t let them flower.  Pinch them back to continue to get yummy leaves for your recipes. After sharing with family and friends, you still have plenty of herbs, try freezing them!  Serious Eats has a tried-and-true method for preserving herbs right in your freezer. 
• - Have you already cleaned out a few rows?  Try planting a Summer cover crop which helps discourage weeds, and will be beneficial to the soil when you till it in. 
• - Fruit trees should be checked often for windfalls--don’t let the fruits rot on the ground, as that is an invitation for disease and pests to invade your trees. 

• - Keep an eye on your tomato and other plants from the nightshade family for the voracious tomato horn worm. Just one of these sphynx moth larvae can eat a whole plant in a night.  The Veggie Gardener website offers some tips on how to avoid getting these heavy eaters on your plants.   

 

Be proactive, and your food plantings and flowers will repay you with food and beauty until Fall.  Try to get outside first thing in the morning, or in the last few hours of daylight to avoid getting too hot.  Hydrate yourself, wear a Summer hat, and take cooling-off breaks if you get heated.  Take care of yourself so you can enjoy the fruits--and veggies--of your labor! 

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Teri Isner is the team leader of Orlando Avenue Top Team and has been a Realtor for over 24 years. Teri has distinguished herself as a leader in the Orlando FL real estate market. Teri assists buyers looking for Orlando FL real estate for sale and aggressively markets Orlando FL homes for sale.
You deserve professional real estate service! You obtain the best results with Teri Isner plus you benefit from her marketing skills, experience and ability to network with other REALTORS®. Your job gets done pleasantly and efficiently.  You are able to make important decisions easily with fast, accurate information from Teri. The Orlando Avenue Top Team handles the details and follow-up that are important to the success of your transaction.
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Let the Kids Grow - In the Garden!

Taking time to work in the garden can be turned into family fun when you get the kids involved.  Children are usually fascinated with how things grow, and being a part of the process may even get them to try some new foods!  Try some of these projects to get them interested, and not to mention, free help in the garden! 

 

• - A bean teepee is a fun and relatively easy project.  Assemble three 8-foot poles in a tepee shape, make sure you give them a good push several inches into the soil, and tie the poles together at the top with jute twine.  Continue using the twine to make a loose net so the vines will have support, just make sure you leave one section open for a doorway.  Plant pole bean seeds at the “base” of the poles and webbing, and watch them grow, and the kids will soon have a little hideaway with fresh beans close by for a snack. 
• - Once your garden is planted, have the kids paint rocks as decorative row markers. 
• - Hummingbird feeders are a common sight, but how about butterfly feeders?  Make this one from PBS Parents with a clean ketchup bottle, fake flowers and a few other household items.   

• - If you don’t have room for a full garden, try a few plants that can be grown in clean five-gallon buckets.  Make sure there’s a drain hole in the bottom, add about an inch of gravel, broken old clay pots or old bricks, and add a good potting soil/compost mix.  Plant cherry tomatoes, bush beans, cucumbers, or zucchini, following the planting guidelines. 
• - Plant recipe-specific plants:  have a spaghetti sauce or pizza row with tomatoes, oregano, basil and bell pepper; a salsa row can have tomatoes, cilantro, garlic, peppers and onions; plant chamomile, any type of mint, or lavender and make tea! 
• - Sunflowers are always an amazement to children because they grow so tall.  These beautiful giants can be grown in many layouts using a garden hose to make the design, leaving room for a path if you’re planting a mini-maze, then planting the seeds along the way, and sunflowers can even be trained to make a little house.   
• - Grow flowers whose blossoms open at different times of the day:  morning glories, daylilies, four o’clock, evening primrose and moonflowers. 
• - A garden based on favorite storybooks is another good way to get them to dig in the dirt.  Plants based on The Tales of Peter Rabbit, Stone Soup, and Blueberries for Sal are just a few ways to engage children in growing and eating what they’ve grown. 

• -Adding a water feature doesn’t have to mean a huge pond with waterfall--small pond containers are available at garden centers, as well as water plants.  Create a mini pond with this guide from Better Homes & GardensⓇ.  

 

There are so many benefits to your family while spending time together outside. Gardening encourages your children to try new things, and gives them a knowledge of where their food comes from, along with a little biology.  You may even be creating life-long gardeners.  Most importantly, you’re making memories. 

 

Access Teri’s one-stop Orlando FL home search website.

Teri Isner is the team leader of Orlando Avenue Top Team and has been a Realtor for over 24 years. Teri has distinguished herself as a leader in the Orlando FL real estate market. Teri assists buyers looking for Orlando FL real estate for sale and aggressively markets Orlando FL homes for sale.

You deserve professional real estate service! You obtain the best results with Teri Isner plus you benefit from her marketing skills, experience and ability to network with other REALTORS®. Your job gets done pleasantly and efficiently.  You are able to make important decisions easily with fast, accurate information from Teri. The Orlando Avenue Top Team handles the details and follow-up that are important to the success of your transaction.

Get Orlando Daily News delivered to your inbox! Subscribe here!

 

Photo credit: KD Novelties