JULY
July Gardening Tips & Monthly Plant Care Guide
July is when the garden really shows off and asks for a little extra attention in return. Summer gardening is in full swing, with flowers blooming, vegetables producing, and lawns working hard under the heat. As temperatures rise, it becomes important to stay on top of watering, regular garden maintenance, and fast-growing weeds. This is the month to focus on consistent summer plant care by watering deeply, deadheading flowers, harvesting vegetables, and keeping your landscape healthy, colorful, and thriving through the heat.
Lawn Care in July
- Raise mower blade height to 3-4 inches to reduce heat stress and retain moisture, as longer grass blades are able to shade their roots.
- Mow Bluegrass and other tall fescue around 3 - 3.5 inches and zoysia at 1.5 inches.
- Water your lawn deeply and less often, watering early in the morning to reduce evaporation and disease risk.
- Watch out for diseases such as brown patch, and grubs as the begin to hatch. An insecticide application in late July or early August may be needed.
- Apply Grub-Out to rid your lawn of chinch bugs, grubs and sod webworms.
- Keep up with mower maintenance - sharpening blades, changing oil and air filters per your owner's manual.
- Fertilize zoysia to encourage summer growth with a high nitrogen fertilizer. Leave the clippings to return nutrients to the soil.
- Take a soil test to prepare for fall lawn renovation
Vegetable Garden & Edible Crops
Harvest Regularly: Enjoy the fruits (and vegetables!) of your labor. Picking tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, beans and squash regularly will encourage continued production.
Fertilize: Apply a garden fertilizer to encourage plant development
Prepare for Fall: Plant potatoes, broccoli, and other fall crops
Lookout for Pests: Watch for pests like earworms as sweet corn silks emerge.
Strawberries: Renovate June-bearing strawberry beds when they are done producing. Mow off the plants, then till strips to clean out the mother plants. Till opposite rows next season. Fertilize with a balanced garden fertilizer for a bigger, better crop next year.
Raspberries: Remove old canes after harvest.
Garden Maintenance: Control weed growth and watch for foliar disease development on lower tomato leaves. Treat with a fungicide.
Flowers
• Remove flower stalks from peonies, irises, and daylilies.
• Water and fertilize container plants regularly to encourage new growth and flowering. Lightly fertilize every time you water, which in the heat of the summer in July-August may be every other day. Use ½ the amount suggested and fertilize with each watering.
• Stop pinching chrysanthemum tips.
• Remove faded flowers from annuals to stimulate more flowers for late summer color, and from perennials to prevent reseeding.
• Keep gardens well mulched to suppress weeds and retain moisture.
• Cut fresh bouquets of flowers for enjoyment on hot summer days.
• Dig, divide, and replant crowded irises.
Rose Care in July
Deadhead Roses: Remove spent blooms to promote repeat flowering.
Fertilize Roses: fertilize roses with rose formulated fertilizer. Do not fertilize roses after August 1st.
Water Roses: Provide deep, consistent watering during hot weather.
Control Rose Pests: Monitor for Japanese beetles, aphids, and mites and treat as needed.
Light Pruning: Remove only dead or damaged growth; avoid heavy pruning in summer.
Trees and Shrubs
- Spray “Sucker Stopper” to discourage sucker growth on crabapples.
- Water newly planted shrubs and young trees (planted within the last three to five years) during dry weather.
- Keep plants mulched to conserve moisture and cool roots.
- Remove suckers (vigorous shoots growing from the base or roots of trees) as soon as they appear. These shoots pull energy away from the main tree, reduce overall vigor, and can impact fruit production on trees like apples and crabapples. Cut suckers off as close to the origin as possible rather than trimming halfway to prevent regrowth.
- Fertilize Azaleas, Rhododendrons, Holly, Hydrangeas with acidic fertilizer once a month.
- Prune diseased, dead, or hazardous limbs.
Miscellaneous
• Using surface irrigation and avoiding watering late at night can help reduce disease development.
• Take photos of gardens, making notes of anything you loved, disliked, or wanting to change next season!