The Beginner's Garden, Phase 5

It's high summer and this is the time when your plants need water most. In most parts of North America, it's hot and dry. A thunderstorm may be dramatic, but it doesn't supply a lot of water and much of the downpour runs off rather than soaking in. Your plants don't care much about getting water on their leaves; it's better to soak the area at their roots. You'll notice that your mulch is keeping the soil underneath it relatively cool, even on hot days.

Shade gardeners, your hostas and astilbes and ferns have reached peak growth for this season and will start to decline as the days grow shorter. Feel free to snip any yellow or brown leaves to keep your small garden looking fairly fresh. Trim off the hosta flowers when they fade so that the plant puts more energy into its leaves and roots. The leaves of your cranesbill geranium make nice filler for cut flower bouquets. You'll notice that the leaves smell nice. Your impatiens will keep putting out flowers until the first frost, when their cells will freeze and burst and they'll suddenly look like cooked spinach stems.

Sun gardeners, keep trimming faded flowers from your echinacea, rudbeckia, achillea, and coreopsis. That will keep them blooming into late September. The coreopsis flowers and foliage can be cut back drastically if the small flowers have faded and the foliage has gone a little ratty. That way, you'll get one more flush of blooms. You'll notice that whichever annuals you chose—nicotiana, verbena bonariensis, petunias, or callibrachoa—have started to form seed heads where the flowers once were. Next May, you'll have seedlings of verbena bonariensis and nicotiana and maybe even petunias. Remember what the leaves look like so you don't mistake them for weeds.

If you have anything in a pot—my suggestions were mint for shade and sweet potato vine for sun—water it well. The roots of container plants take up more and more room as the summer progresses and the plant needs more water now than it did in June.