At this time of the year, I feel quite a bit like my flowers feel right now. I am out of energy. I am uninspired, just content to sit amongst my plants, who seem to be asking me to do something.
Late August in the garden really only needs us to keep deadheading and cutting back spent perennial blooms. It is a good time to stop fertilizing plants to allow them time to harden off for winter freezing.
This is also not a good time to prune any of your shrubs or trees as this can promote new growth. During these days of dry conditions, all energy should go into creating healthy roots to enable the plant to survive through colder temperatures. Water less, but when watering, water deeply to help conserve our precious resource.
We should all be thinking of planning water-wise plantings in our gardens to deal with our weather changes. Our neighbourhood planted up a traffic roundabout seven years ago, planting all drought resistant plants. When we planted our flowers, we watered deep, successfully establishing healthy plants. We have added at least four inches of leaf mulch each year which has added to keeping moisture in for the roots. This year, we have only watered our little roundabout three times.
I find with the nights becoming cooler, my brain starts to think “autumn gardening”. I am browsing through gardening magazines and websites, planning changes I will make to my own garden.
I plan on moving some of my plants that are definitely not in the right place - not enough sun, too much sun, too dry, etc.
A great website to help us create gardens that are more friendly to our environment with a focus on attracting pollinators, being water-wise and chemical free and an excellent selection of plants that thrive in our local climate, can be found at www.growgreenguide.ca. Metro Vancouver, in collaboration with UBC Botanical Garden, has compiled an extensive list of plants that would work well on an apartment balcony, in a yard or in containers.
I have already found a new design for one of my little garden beds in my yard from the Growgreen website.
Take some time during the lazy days of late summer to plan a new garden or renovate an existing garden with Mother Nature in mind. That should re-energize our gardening spirit and give us some wonderful reading to do while sipping a lemonade in your garden.
Lynda Pasacreta is the current president of the Richmond Garden Club. For more information and tips on gardening, visit richmondgardenclub.ca.
