This week in the garden: Sept. 20 - 26

Sep 20, 2024

This week in the garden: Sept. 20 - 26

Sep 20, 2024

Enjoy the last flush of blooming roses along with the bounty of the fall harvest.

Tasks

  • Adjust watering systems as weather cools.
  • Remove and dispose of any fruit and nuts that cling to the tree.
  • To discourage spider mites, spray hedges and shrubs with water to clean them and keep them free of dust.
  • Water citrus, being careful not to overwater. Continuously wet soil risks root rot.

Pruning

  • Do not apply any treatments to pruning cuts or other wounds because these materials are ineffective (and often detrimental).
  • Deadhead and shape rosebushes to promote a final fall bloom.

Fertilizing

  • Wait two weeks after planting new flowers and vegetables before feeding with organic or complete fertilizer.
  • Add bulb fertilizer to planting hole before planting bulbs.

Planting

  • This is the best time to plant shrubs and groundcovers.
  • Groundcovers: Carpet bugle (Ajuga), Germander (Teucrium chamaedrys ‘Nanum').
  • Perennials: Cyclamen, French tarragon (Artemisia dracunculus), cranesbill (Geranium).
  • Before planting winter vegetables, turn a generous amount of compost into the vegetable bed.
  • Fruits and vegetables: garlic, onion sets, lettuce, parsley.
  • Trees, shrubs, vines: Acacia baileyana, strawberry tree (Arbutus ‘Marina'), hawthorn (Crataegus), sago palm (Cycas), desert willow (Chilopsis linearis).

Enjoy now

  • Annuals and perennials: vinca (Catharanthus), chrysanthemum, dianthus, coneflower (Echinacea), globe amaranth (Gomphrena).
  • Bulbs, corms, tubers: dahlia.
  • Trees, shrubs, vines: pineapple guava (Feijoa), morning glory (Ipomoea), crape myrtle (Lagerstroemia).
  • Fruits and vegetables: almonds, lettuce, melon, nectarines, persimmon.
  • Fall color: goldenrain tree (Koelreuteria), sweet gum (Liquidambar styraciflua).

Things to ponder

  • Do not replace vinca with pansies in the same bed, due to a soil borne fungal root rot that affects these plants.

By Terry Lewis
Prepared by
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