ILLINOIS YARD AND GARDEN

Simple August gardening chores

My mission in life is to develop a national holiday for August. There isn't one. Every other month has something exciting going on. August doesn't.

Calling the Illinois State Fair a holiday probably won't cut it. Few famous people born during the month deserve national recognition. Carl Yastrzemski comes to mind, though many won't agree that a baseball player, any player, is worthy to be recognized yet. And getting people to spell his last name correctly will be difficult.

Why is it important to have a national holiday during August? Well, many gardening chores can be associated with holidays. Labor Day is perfect for lawn work. Just about all lawn care operations such as seeding, sodding, aerating, dethatching, fertilizing and broad-leaf weed control occurs then.

Thanksgiving is great for winterizing equipment and feeding the lawn one last time. April 1, or Easter, is the start of the garden planting. July 4 is the last time to prune your shrubs until the first of October. Halloween is great for getting lots of candy.

But poor ol' August has nothing going for it. Just hot, dreary days with an occasional thunderstorm to cut the gravel road dust for a day.

Of course, on the other hand, there really isn't much to do during August. Sure, you can and should transplant iris during the month and everything will probably need a good watering.

Which brings to mind the one or two major tasks that can be accomplished this month, and more toward the beginning. Fortunately for heat weary gardeners, they are simple, easy and painless.

The first is pinching.

This is not pinching a loved one, unless you look at your flowers as loved ones. If so, then I don't want to know about it.

Face it. While petunias are wonderful plants with a multitude of colors and habits, they start looking leggy and puny by mid-summer. That's because most of them have this strong sense of blooming at the ends of the branches. They grow an inch or so, produce a flower, grow another inch or so, then produce another flower. Geraniums are the same. So are zinnias.

Soon the plants are wispy threads of leaves and a scattered flower at the end.

They need, as some gardeners say, a haircut. More correctly, it's a pruning. A deadheading. A stimulation.

This is one of the easiest garden chores. You simply lift up the stems carefully, and then with a bold move on your part, you just cut them back by half. They don't scream. They don't run away. It's a perfect operation.

Now, some people have difficulty and they cut them back by 1 percent. Not enough. You have to go back by half.

There are two ways to help you along if you're scared. First, imagine the plant as hair reaching down to the middle of the back of your kid or grandkid, and they don't suspect you have the scissors. Easy.

Or, you can fortify yourself with any type of fermented beverage. After a couple swallows, pruning isn't difficult.

Many of the annual garden flowers prefer this trimming. Cockscomb is about the only one that doesn't.

Which leads to the second chore - fertilizing.

By August, much of the nitrogen in the soil probably has been leached away or used by the plant. If you want to continue stimulating growth on your flowers and vegetables, you'll need to provide the food.

Some use granular fertilizer, such as a 10-10-10 and sprinkle a little bit around the plants, and then water it in. That's okay, also. Don't go hog wild. Just enough to re-stimulate growth. It's about a half pound per 100 feet of row or plants. Lightly work it into the soil.

Other people use a liquid or water-soluble fertilizer according to the directions, which is the only way to use it. They feed the plants, and then go inside and feed themselves. Perfectly acceptable as long as you follow the directions ... for the outside feeding, that is. Well, maybe the inside as well. Just don't accidentally pinch yourself at the same time.

David Robson is an Extension Educator, Horticulture, at the Springfield Extension Center, University of Illinois Extension. You can write to Robson in care of Illinois Country Living, P.O. Box 3787, Springfield, IL 62708. Telephone: (217) 782-6515. E-Mail: robsond@mail.aces.uiuc.edu

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