Don’t put away your gardening tools yet! Spring planting season may be over, but there are actually many plants that can be added to the garden later in the year. These summer annuals are perfect for replacing short-lived spring annuals. Add these late-season pops of color to keep your garden looking its best this year.

Coleus

Color isn’t all about flowers! Coleus offers stunning foliage in a variety of colors, making it perfect to brighten up your garden late in the season. For best results, plant coleus in partial shade. You can also use it for container plantings. Keep the show going longer by pinching off any flowers that form.

Alternanthera “Purple Knight”

Much like coleus, alternanthera offers stunning foliage. It does best in partial shade to full sun, and can be used as a landscape plant or grown in containers. Late in the season, it’s a great filler for areas of your garden that are looking a little thin.

Pentas

Pentas bloom in shades of pink, white, and lavender. Their flowers are clusters of small trumpet-shaped blooms, with star-shaped openings. Butterflies and hummingbirds absolutely love them, and pentas love hot weather. You can’t beat them as a midsummer fill-in for sunny spots.

Tuberous Begonias

In Maryland, tuberous begonias grow best in containers with relatively good drainage. However, spending a little bit of effort to plant them will yield a big show. Their flowers bloom in almost every color, and they’ll keep growing strong until the first frost. They make wonderful hanging basket plants for porches, and can also be brought indoors to enjoy during the winter. Plant in full sun to partial shade.

Scaevola

Sometimes called “fan flower,” scaevola is a trailing annual plant with purple or white flowers. If your container gardens could use a pep-up, plant scaevola along the edges for long-lasting color. Prefers full sun to partial shade.

Wishbone Flower

Look for Torenia, or “wishbone flower,” as another summer container filler. It’s semi-upright with purple or dark pink flowers and creamy throats. A tough plant with a bit of tropical flair, it will bloom like crazy until frost.

New Guinea Impatiens

We love these garden workhorse flowers. You can basically plant them and forget them! Some varieties have darker leaves, but all have bright, almost tropical-hued flowers. Grow in full sun to partial shade in containers, or as a mass planting in your landscape beds. They’re real showstoppers!

Geraniums

Geraniums offer flowers in a variety of hues, and are great for attracting bees and butterflies to the garden. Plant geraniums in full sun to get the most blooms and water when the soil gets dry. Be careful not to overwater because this will increase the risk of disease. You can bring a pot of geraniums indoors to enjoy for the winter, too. Just make sure it gets bright light.

Don’t let your summer garden become lackluster! Fill blank spaces and add more color and life to your garden with these summer annuals. The beauty they bring is well worth the extra effort. For help finding what would work best in your garden, come into one of our store locations and speak to an expert today.

The post Summer Annuals to Brighten up Your Garden appeared first on Homestead Gardens, Inc..

After spending the winter dreaming of warm weather, it’s easy to forget just how hot the summer can get. While the internet is full of tips for people looking to beat the heat, it’s important for gardeners to remember that people aren’t the only ones that struggle when temperatures soar. Plants are also affected by hot temperatures. That’s why we’ve rounded up some tips to help your garden beat the summer heat.

Water at the Right Time

If you want to make the most of watering, avoid the middle of the day. Instead, try to water your garden in the early morning or evening. Watering during the middle of the day will increase the chance of your water being lost to evaporation. You could also risk burning your plants if you use overhead watering. Water droplets on leaves can act as a magnifying glass, focusing the sun’s rays and burning a portion of the leaves.

Choose the Right Plants

If you need to fill spaces where a plant has died, or where you’ve already harvested an early season crop like lettuce, it’s important to choose heat tolerant plants and water them regularly. For vegetables, try quick-growing, heat-tolerant plants like hot peppers, green beans, and summer squash. Check out our post, Some Like it Hot! Best Vegetables to Grow in Heat, for more ideas.

Use Mulch

A great way to help nearly any plant thrive in hot temperatures is to mulch around the base of the plant (don’t let the mulch touch the plant stem.) In a vegetable patch, grass clippings, straw, or even leaves will work. For flower beds, wood or bark mulches look nice and work well. Mulch insulates the soil, keeping it cool and moist around the plant’s roots even as temperatures rise. As a bonus, mulch helps prevent weeds.

Try Companion Planting

Another great way to keep soil temperatures cool is to practice companion planting. Companion planting is when you plant two plants that will benefit each other together. To shade the soil beneath taller plants like corn, sunflowers, or trellised pole beans, you can grow vining plants like cucumbers, winter squash, or sweet potatoes. Alternatively, you can use a trellis of pole beans or cucumbers, or a hedge of okra, to provide partial shade to a crop that prefers cooler temperatures, such as new cabbage seedlings that might be sprouting.

Install Shade Cloth

When planting new plants, provide a bit of shade, which will allow them to establish. Row covers and shade cloth (even an umbrella will work in a pinch) placed over newly-planted annuals and shrubs for a few days will help plants avoid transplant shock.

Watch for Fungal Diseases

When the weather gets hot and humid, some plants become more susceptible to fungal diseases like verticillium wilt, which affects tomatoes, or downy mildew, which harms cucumbers. Identify the disease and either remove affected plants or find the appropriate treatment and apply according to package instructions. Prevention is often the best solution. Keep track of which plants you’re experiencing problems with. Next season, try implementing crop rotation, plant disease-resistant varieties, and/or try to optimize airflow. For plants like tomatoes, you can prune lower leaves and “suckers” to introduce more airflow, and cucumbers can be trellised.

This summer, when the temperatures climb, ensure your garden is ready. Maintain a productive and beautiful garden this season with these simple tips to help your plants beat the heat. For more tips and tricks to keep your garden growing this summer, visit one of our store locations and speak with an expert, we’re here to help!

The post Beat the Heat – Summer Garden Care appeared first on Homestead Gardens, Inc..

Midsummer is when you really want to be outside, enjoying your garden. However, heat, rain (or lack of it), and insects can take their toll. Maybe your garden is looking a little lackluster right now. Thankfully, it’s easy to bring a garden back to life when it’s a little tired. Here are some simple ways you can give your landscape a summer refresh during the hot Maryland summer and enjoy it all season.

Catch up on Weeding

Clearing out the weeds can make your garden look a lot better with just a little work. If you want a quick break to enjoy the outdoors, weeding a small section of your garden is a good way to get some fresh air and feel a sense of accomplishment. When weeding larger spaces, try using a tool, like a stirrup or shuffle hoe, rather than just hand weeding. This will make the weeding faster.

Give Your Plants a Haircut

A great way to quickly get your garden back in shape is to deadhead and prune any plants that have grown unruly. Deadheading plants (pruning off old flowers about an inch below the spent blooms) can encourage more flowering. Cut back leggy plants like mint and basil, or petunias and trailing plants like sweet potato vines, to encourage fuller growth.

Keep up with Watering

Unless you’re getting a lot of rain, watering is important all season long, especially as your plants get bigger. If you’re having trouble remembering to water, add it to your calendar. You can also set up a sprinkler or drip irrigation system on a timer to make sure your garden stays in great shape. Pay careful attention to container gardens. They may require water twice per day.

Fertilize

By midsummer, many plants will need a little boost. This is especially true of potted plants, because regular watering can rinse nutrients out of the soil. Water soluble fertilizers, or foliar feeds like liquid kelp, are great for this time of year and can easily be incorporated into your watering routine. Always follow package instructions. More fertilizer is not better!

Declutter

Take a lesson from the latest interior trends and declutter your garden. Toss, repair, or donate any broken or unused tools, pots, and garden supplies. Organize what can be kept for future use so it will be ready when you need it during the rest of the summer or next spring.

Do a Little Painting

A simple coat of paint can do wonders for the way your yard looks. If your shed, fence, or patio furniture is looking a little drab, repaint it. It’s a great way to add a touch of color, and it can buy time before something needs to be replaced.

Fluff Your Mulch

You can lightly stir or fluff your mulch with a simple garden hoe. Some places may need additional mulch now that the mulch you put on in spring has settled and begun breaking down.

Replace Dead Plants

Plants die. It’s just a fact, and it has nothing to do with the greenness of your thumb. If you have plants that died and left an obvious gap in your garden, pop in some fresh ones to keep your garden looking beautiful for the rest of summer. Try easy-to-grow flowers like cosmos, marigolds, celosia, salvia, or petunias. Alternatively, add some texture with an array of succulents, or bring some more flavor to your backyard cookouts with hot pepper, basil, or oregano plants.

If your garden isn’t where you’d like it to be this July, try a couple of these tips to give it a little new life. Stop in at one of our locations if you need supplies or any additional advice. We’d be happy to help!

The post Summer Refresh – Spruce Up Your Garden appeared first on Homestead Gardens, Inc..

Summer is finally on its way, and families are starting to plan their summer activities. Swimming, family cookouts, and camping trips are all on the family to-do list. One great project that kids will definitely enjoy is planting a garden!

Not only will they be able to harvest and eat food they grew themselves, they’ll also get some sneaky benefits. Gardening with kids has been shown to help improve motor skills and encourage them to try new, healthy foods.

Gardening is also a great way to help you foster children’s social skills. While connecting with their family, they learn about cooperation, responsibility, patience, and the value of hard work. Gardening is one of the few projects that won’t give your children instant gratification. It’s a valuable experience.

This is also an opportunity for kids to learn about the environment. You can discuss wildlife, pollution, and what plants need to grow. The benefits of time outdoors engaging all their senses can’t be ignored, either. Gardening can help them burn off energy and get better at fine motor skills with activities like planting individual seeds. And who isn’t looking for ways to get kids away from screens? Once they harvest their first radish, they’ll be hooked on gardening, instead!

Getting Started With a Kids’ Garden

While it comes with a lot of benefits, there’s no doubt that gardening with small children can be tough. They might accidentally crush your young spinach plants or “helpfully” weed out your heirloom tomatoes. There are a few tricks you can use to make gardening more pleasurable for them and for you.

First, find tools that are specially sized just for kids. After all, kids want to do what they see the adults doing. A small watering can is great for very young children who will happily water plants (and everything else) while you tackle more detailed work.

Next, set the kids up for success. Give younger kids who haven’t had a chance to fully develop fine motor skills larger seeds to plant (like beans and cucumbers) rather than tiny seeds (like lettuce and carrots.) If they do want to plant carrots, just beware that they may not end up in a tidy row! Size can also be important at harvest time. Kids love things like cherry tomatoes, strawberries, green beans, and smaller cucumber varieties that are easy to pick. They can also munch on these bite-sized vegetables right in the garden.

If you have space, give kids their own section of the garden to do with as they please. You can let them go wild planting things wherever they want and not have to worry about them ruining your entire harvest.

Best Plants for Kids

These plants are relatively easy to grow from seeds or transplants and are fun for kids to help harvest.

• Cucumbers
• Tomatoes
• Radishes
• Peas
• Carrots
• Lettuce
• Beans
• Squash
• Pumpkins
• Strawberries

If you’re having trouble getting your child interested in spending time in the garden try a few of these tips:

1).  Use what children already love. Have a daughter that loves “The Hobbit?” Try growing nasturtiums, one of J.R.R. Tolkien’s favorite plants that he featured in his description of the Shire. Maybe you’ve read “Jack and The Beanstalk” together; try growing a tall pole bean variety together to get your child’s imagination going.

2).  Plant a themed garden. Pollinator gardens are a fun choice and can help you teach children about the importance of pollinators like bees and butterflies. Other good choices include pizza or salad gardens. These are fun projects because when harvest time comes, you can put together a meal emphasizing the benefits of your child’s hard work. You can also create a fairy or gnome garden and create homes from natural materials like twigs, bark, and stones for these imaginary creatures amongst the plants.

3).  Look for fun varieties. Plants like rainbow Swiss chard, purple green beans, rainbow carrots, and indigo cherry tomatoes that aren’t available in the grocery store will stand out in your child’s mind. Allow older children to select the seeds they’d like to grow and let them help plan the garden.

4).  A great project is to create a bean fort or tipi. Create a sturdy trellis or tipi of poles (bamboo works well) and plant pole beans around the structure. The plants will climb the structure and create a shady hideaway for children to visit later in the season.

It doesn’t matter if you’ve always had a green thumb or you’re completely new to gardening. You can start gardening with your kids and create memories you’ll all treasure. Your kids will probably surprise you. They might eat a vegetable they previously disliked now that they’ve grown it themselves or become dedicated to their project in a way you couldn’t even imagine!

The post Green Beans & Patience: Advice for Gardening with Children appeared first on Homestead Gardens, Inc..