I don’t know about you, but seeing this August go away in the rear view mirror won’t bother me at all!! We’ll be talking about getting your soil prepared for Fall gardens on the Garden Hour of the Rosie on the House Show this morning at 8am. Tune in to KTAR 
and listen to the tip, call in your questions, or just laugh at the Cajun/Az banter that takes place. Be sure to print out the coupon for 20% OFF one Gro-Well product. You can bring this page in or any print out of the coupon. We are all glad to see August go away, the days get shorter and eventually cooler. Don’t wait until the time is perfect to plant, because it usually happens overnight. Be ready by starting to till organic material like Omni into your garden now. If you do it a little at a time it doesn’t even seem much like work. Then when that perfect day arrives, you’ll be ready to plant!!
Last Radio Show Of August!
Hot Off The Press-Our Weekly Newsletter
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Landscape Got The Blahs?
August can be a tough time of year to get excited about much in the landscape. It can also be a tough time to find much excitement in the nursery or garden center to spruce things up for a few weeks. We only have a little over a month and the fall/winter color selections will start rolling out ( our first geranium cuttings will arrive next week). So what can you do right now that can give you some value and impact. Try mixing sweet potato vine with lantana as in this picture or gazania or katie ruellia or all 3. The pots will look great, last the rest of summer, and beyond if you’d like and when the new geraniums come out you can replant these in a flower bed or landscape if you want to keep them going! Have A Great Weekend and Good Growin’.
Let The Weekend Begin!
Hard to believe this is the last weekend of July! Well I don’t know about you but I am always glad to see this month in my rear view mirror! Not that I want time to pass any faster but if I could eliminate one month of the year, July would be it! That being said, Fall gardening is just around the corner. Have you looked around your yard lately? Take note of what has performed well and what you may want to reconsider for next year. Get your old vegetable garden cleaned up and start preparing the soil for fall veggies. We just place our Fall seed order and the new arrivals should be here soon. You can start planting pumpkins, corn, beans, and some squash now! If your lawn has struggled this summer, most have, now would be a great time to fertilize again ( they are calling for some rain and that is a great time to get fertilizer down ahead of). I know these are the “Dog Days” of summer but it is winding down and there are lots of things you can start doing again out in the garden. Good Growin’
Harper’s Weekly Newsletter
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Plant Ol’ Reliable!
For sure fire summer color sometimes you just can’t beat the tried and true! We have always considered lantana a landscape shrub, but no longer. With the advent of newer colors and smaller growth habits ie: red, gold mound… 
the old reliable lantana has a new resurrected life as a hot weather annual. Whether you’re doing pots or flower beds it is showy, has a variety of colors from white to red and almost every combination in between, and it blooms in full hot sun without fail! If you need ideas for pots,planters,or your entire landscape we can help. Remember Jerry Harper’s team of landscape designers is ready to come out and do an evaluation of you landscape -FREE! Give us a Call and remember ol’ reliable, we’ve been doing this for 66 years! Good Growin’.
Harper’s Weekly Newsletter
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| The bad news is it is hot. The Good News is July is almost over and Fall will soon be here!
Some gardening facts for late July: Starting this week the average temperature actually starts dropping.We can start planting pumpkins, corn, and some squash from seed . In a few weeks the list of vegetable seed varieties we can plant grows exponentially! If you haven’t applied pre emergent herbicides to prevent summer weeds, especially spurge-do it now-”dimension” works great. Spurge loves the hot humid weather and pops up from seemingly nowhere! As your summer garden wanes, start preparing the soil for fall planting as mentioned previously it isn’t too far off! Continue to mulch around trees, shrubs,roses,vegetables,etc…Your plants will love you back! Control weeds early as they compete for water,space,and nutrients with your desirable plants and they are easier to kill when young and tender. Keep your lawn fertilized every 30 days with fertilome lawn food or turf royale and be sure to mow regularly enough. Speaking of lawns, this has been a very trying summer for the transition from winter back to summer lawns. Be sure your watering system is working properly, you are fertilizing, aerating and applying gypsum or sulfur will help. If your lawn doesn’t seem to respond favorably to these techniques, we’d be glad to come out and diagnose/evaluate your situation. This is a great time to evaluate your plantings. If they look great now they’ll be fine most of the year, if they aren’t performing well and haven’t been , it may be time to consider something new. This is a fine time to plant heat loving trees ,shrubs,and vines. Come in or we’ll come out-either way we’d love to help you have the garden of your dreams! Tip Of The WeekListen live this week to the Garden Segment of “Rosie On The House” You can hear this tip in much more detail. you may also click on the coupon, print it out and bring it in for a 20% savings on the product mentioned! The tip this week is Nutgrass Control. This fast growing “sedge” (not really a grass) can really make a lawn look terrible and almost unusable as the tips of the plant are sharp and uncomfortable to walk on. The make up of the plant makes it hard to kill and impossible to dig up and remove, in fact you might make it worse. Hi Yield “nutsedge control” or sedgehammer work well and are safe to use in the lawn. Listen at 8am Saturday mornings on 92.3fm KTAR for this and all kinds of gardening fun and frolic!
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A Sunday Surprise!
Love surprises? I do especially in the garden. The neat thing about bulbs is you often forget they are there till one day when all the conditions are right, presto there they are! We got a few sprinkles last night, don’t know if i’d call it rain but that was all it took to trigger this rain lily to pop out. There are lots of options for your summer garden and this is one of them. It doesn’t have to be drab dreary and burned up. Consider rain lilies, gazanias, sweet potato vine, lantana, lavender
,ice plant,etc. Notice i didn’t mention Vinca? Enjoy your Sunday and plant a surprise! Good Growin’
Don’t Just Stand There-Plant Something!
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Well the monsoon has arrived, complete with one of the biggest dust storms ever. What does that mean for your garden?Water,Water,Water,and Water Some More!
When temperatures reach the levels we’re going to and have had over the last week or so most watering schedules are not sufficient. Please check your plants daily for sufficient moisture. It will be normal for plants to wilt in the middle of the day, so we’d suggest checking in the early morning hours. If the plants are already in wilt they will be in big trouble by the middle of the day. Concentrate on watering deeply, hours not minutes, when it comes to drip systems and don’t be afraid to override your schedule for a few days and turn the timer on manually if need be. A hint is to have an “indicator” plant in your landscape. What we mean by that is a plant that might show signs of needing water first. In the case of the nursery, we look at the cape honeysuckle and or duranta. They will tend to show a slight wilt when they need watering before any of the other plants do. A little wilt will not damage your plants if you water sufficiently and in a timely manner after it shows up. If your indicator plants show a little wilt you know the rest of the landscape probably will need watering soon anyway! So get out while it is cool and check your plants even though you have an “automatic” timer on your system. Your timer can’t see or sense the change in the weather, unless you have one of the new “smart” timers. Gardening is a touch and feel thing and without the gardener there is no garden, your timer doesn’t care!
