Nearby is Tip Of The Iceberg, a clever rock garden made of recycled fridges filled with alpine plants and surrounded by a sea of glass chips.

Designed by John Esling and Caroline Tait, John assured me that the fridges were not brand new: “We polished them up!” he said, and showed me a fridge with stickers still on it that they couldn’t pull off.

Several of the show gardens are mixed in with the Conceptual Gardens, including Matthew Child’s Ecover Garden that won Best In Show. Its message is that water is life, and it is in the centre of the Ecover Inspire Zone that features Low Cost High Impact small gardens that are full of good ideas that can be used at home.

If you don’t turn right up Ditton Avenue, but follow the path that runs parallel with The Long Water canal, you can visit the RHS Butterfly Dome with Eden.

This is full of exotic plants as well as butterflies, and is particularly interesting for families, with things for children to do.

There are lots of demonstrations and talks in the nearby Celebrity Speakers Catwalk In Bloom Theatre, and the Growing Tastes marquee next to it, but if you want to escape the afternoon heat I would recommend the Floral Marquee on the other side of The Long Water.

While temperatures outside were in the high 20s yesterday it remained cool and sweetly scented.

As always it is a feast of colour with everybody’s favourite plants in eye-catching displays: lavender, lupins and lilies are among the most impressive, but one of the most interesting displays is Squire’s Legacy Of Jekyll (www.squiresgardencentres.co.uk), which cleverly illustrated Gertrude Jekyll’s pioneering informal style.

It is quite an achievement in such a tiny space, and all with plants easily available to 21st century gardeners.

Also this side of the water is the Plant Heritage Marquee, officially opened by the Countess of Wessex yesterday, and lots of specialist nursery stalls selling a huge array of tempting plants.

My favourite garden? They are all well designed and beautifully planted but two along Ditton Avenue were particularly poignant: A Moveable Feast highlights the experience of Army families that find it hard to put down roots because they have to move continually. Old Army boots planted up brought home the message wittily.

Then there was Athanasia, a woodland garden designed by David Sarton in memory of horticultural photographer, wife and mother, Emma Peios, who died from leukaemia last year.

“Athanasia is a place for reflection, rest and a celebration of the beauty of nature,” says David in his publicity leaflet. And that’s really what gardening is all about.

With an unusually dry rainy season behind us and months of warm weather ahead, thoughts naturally turn to the possibility of fire. It’s a topic well understood by Scott O’Brien, who owns Scott O’Brien Fire Safety with partner Bryan Matherly.

The Atascadero-based company has been in business for 13 years and services San Luis Obispo, Monterey and Santa Barbara Counties. It services fire extinguishers and handles installation and repair of fire sprinklers for residential customers. Commercial services include fire training and exit and emergency light services.

According to O’Brien, many homeowners have a false sense of security regarding fire extinguishers. Few realize that the majority of home extinguishers are disposable and need to be replaced annually. After a year, the powder in the extinguisher can settle and clump, the unit can leak and lose pressure, or parts in the valve and nozzle can corrode or deteriorate.

He suggests purchasing a commercial-grade rechargeable extinguisher that can be refilled every year by a company like O’Brien’s. In the long run, it is a more cost-efficient option. Rechargeable extinguishers cost $35 to $55, versus $25 to $35 for a disposable extinguisher. Refilling costs around $25, and the extinguisher can last 24 years or more.

Strategic placement of extinguishers is also important. O’Brien recommends keeping one wherever fire is likely, such as the kitchen, garage and near the water heater. “They should be no further than 15 feet away from a hazard area,” he said.

If you have a multi-level home, have at least one extinguisher on each level. It also makes sense to keep one outdoors during the summer in case of fires caused by yard equipment or barbecues. You can mount one outdoors yearround, although it will cut down on the longevity of the extinguisher.

Although extinguishers aren’t exactly decorator objects, it helps to keep them in plain sight. Burying one at the back of a cabinet or up high out of reach means you lose precious seconds retrieving it in an emergency. If you do put it in acabinet, make sure family members know where it is. A good way to do this is with a yearly fire drill where family members practice escape routes and brush up on how to use extinguishers.

“Unless you practice it, when an accident happens and you’re under stress, you may not remember what to do,” he said.

Finally, don’t forget to change the batteries in your smoke alarm once a year. And keep in mind that the alarms only last 10 to 15 years. So while you’re up there, activate the test button to see if the unit is still working.

The small investment in time and money is worth it, according to O’Brien, who said that “having adequate fire protection is the cheapest insurance you can buy.”

LINCOLN, Neb. — A primary goal with many small gardens is to make them feel larger… to enlarge, if not the space, at least the perception of space.

Many gardeners do this by making better use of vertical space. Trees, shrubs and vines and physical elements like sculpture, fences, plant containers and trellises can extend the ground plane so the eye never stops but simply moves from the ground level upward and outward.

Gradual and varied changes of height – groundcover to flowerbed to shrub to tree – can give an impression of depth and complexity and keep the sense of space fluid and moving. A diversity of plants in varying heights also makes the yard less susceptible to plant-specific problems and attracts a wider variety of birds and other wildlife and pollinators.

Placed properly, trees and shrubs can obscure the view into the garden, making it appear larger and attracting attention into the space but not beyond it. It might seem best not to divide a limited space into smaller areas but the effect can be just the opposite, increasing rather than limiting the sense of space. Curved rather than straight pathways and plantings can make separate areas seem farther apart than they are. And careful attention to scale can make a striking difference. The size of trees, plants, sidewalks and any focus points can help make portions of the garden seem farther away or hide views into corners, making the end-points disappear.

In small lots, air circulation is often restricted by nearby buildings or privacy fences. Using a border of plants in varying heights means air can circulate more freely to avoid hot, stale spaces with limited air movement. They can also provide microclimates with varying degrees of sunlight, another element that is often restricted in small spaces. With a little more sunlight in a few spots, the color options increase as well. For shady areas, using variegated plants like hosta and Jack Frost brunnera in dark corners will draw interest and make them much more visually interesting.

If the garden is squeezed in by other gardens or an interesting view, why not “borrow” them? With the right-sized plants, you can frame views and make them appear part of your own landscape.

In a small yard, it’s important to have plants that offer several seasons of interest. Many shrubs or small trees have spring bloom, summer fruit and fall color: redbud, serviceberry, viburnum, currant, wahoo, dogwood, crabapple, chokeberry, etc.  Vines can add vertical interest.

Evergreens are available in sizes to fit even the smallest garden and evergreen groundcovers like periwinkle, germander and ivy can help keep it green. If there’s enough sunshine, grasses are beautiful most of the year and there are grasslike sedges that can handle dry shade. For perennials, some of the best year-round workhorses for small gardens are: coralbells, Lenten rose, coneflower, black-eyed Susan and sedum.

It’s one of the hottest months! Here are some gardening tips for this blazing time of the year:

• Keep your water bill under control. Check your irrigation system for leaks!

• Keep your beauty growing! Be sure your tender annuals are getting enough water. (Yes, this advice seems like common sense, but it’s amazing how many plants don’t get the well-timed water they need. See below for rose-specific advice.)

• Do not assume: In the somewhat unlikely event of rain, remember that we’d need a half-inch to be safe in turning off the irrigation for any length of time.

• All plants, just like all of us, would love to be in afternoon shade.

Show Roses Special TLC

Here’s some additional information on roses in the desert from the Mesa East Valley Rose Society:

• Considering this almost-unprecedented heat, be careful to keep roses watered adequately. Water more frequently, and increase the quantity to compensate for the extremely high temperatures.

• Water the night before—or even one or two days before really high temperatures are forecast—so there is available soil moisture.

• After a day of extreme temperatures, water your roses in the evening. Make sure the surface soil is moist—and make sure the deeper soil in the root zone is moist as well. This will help cool the soil and assist the roses to recover. Roses with readily available soil moisture stand a better chance of surviving—and are better prepared for the next day’s high-stress temperatures.

• Be proactive and water ahead of roses showing stress. When we see roses stress from inadequate water, it is too late … some or all of the bush will likely die.

Marylee is the Desert’s Potted Garden Expert. Email her with comments and questions at
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View full sizeBars of strong-smelling soap hung around the garden can help repel deer and other critters.Amy Sancetta, AP 


Birds and Blooms, a bird and garden magazine, has rounded up some of the most useful objects for your garden that cost almost nothing. You probably have many of them in your basement or garage.

Use recycled cans, worn boots, damaged watering cans, old teapots and discarded sinks as containers for herbs, flowers and houseplants. Be sure to create drainage holes.

Paper bags can protect tender plants from frost. Set the bags upside down over tops of plants when there is a threat of frost, and put soil or rock over the edges of the bags to hold them in place.
Remove in the morning so plants can enjoy the sun.

Kitchen forks, knives and spoons make great garden tools. Use to separate flats, lift seedlings and tease apart root balls, suggests Birds and Blooms magazine.

Thick layers of newspaper kills grass and prevents weeds from growing in new garden beds.

Use tin cans with the tops and bottoms cut out to keep destructive cutworms from eating plants. Press the cans into the soil and plant seedlings inside.
Sprinkle coffee grounds at the base of plants to improve drainage in clay. Azaleas and blueberries love it.

Break a bar of soap in to several pieces and hang from string, old pantyhose or net bags from trees near places where deer feed. The strong deodorant smell may keep out deer and other pests, according to Birds and Blooms magazine.

Tie aluminum pie pans to a string and hang them from branches or fence. The annoying noise they make as they bang around and flash of reflected light may keep away deer, rabbits and other pests.

 Use packing peanuts in large pots to make them lighter and improve drainage.
Old pantyhose can be used to tie up floppy plants, or to line the bottom of pots so water gets out but dirt can’t.

For more garden bargains, go to birdsandblooms/gardening/summer/garden-bargains. 

After months of rain, many people in the Twin Cities are dealing with water-logged gardens. The storms that passed through last month, pulling down many trees along the way, might also have you considering what larger plants and trees to fill your yard with in the near future.

Gardening experts join The Daily Circuit to talk about the conditions facing area gardeners. They will also take listener questions.

If you’re having some problems with your garden or need some advice about starting a new garden, leave your questions in the comments section below.

LEARN MORE ABOUT SUMMER GARDENING:

• 9 Water-Conserving Tips for Summer Gardening

To keep your grass or your garden alive during the summer heat wave without driving your water bill to new heights, follow these tips. (Popular Mechanics)

• July: the lazy days of summer

“The key to success for July is maintenance and good, effective watering. Your local garden centre can give you tips and advice on Summer tasks, but here are some ‘must do’ jobs for the garden this month.” (Bedfordshire News)

• Master Gardener

“In 2011, University of Minnesota Extension Master Gardeners gave more than 130,000 hours to their communities–a public value worth more than $2.8 million.” (University of Minnesota)

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Garden railroading combines the best of landscaping, gardening and large-scale model trains.

Here are some tips from Doug Blaine of Bachmann Trains, which produces many kinds of trains:

* Set up your train in a section of the yard that’s at least 72 square feet, relatively flat, with little foot traffic and close to an electrical source.

* Any large-scale starter set that includes enough brass or stainless steel track to make a simple 12-foot circle is ideal for beginners.

* It’s important to dig a trench 2 to 3 inches deep for the roadbed and fill it with crushed rock to ensure that your track remains even and steady.

* If you decide to add a tunnel to your track, Blaine suggests building the tunnel no longer than your arm, so that you can easily remove obstructions inside the tunnel, if necessary.

* Once a garden railroad is established, it can run throughout the year by adding a snow plow to the locomotive — to plow the tracks in the winter months, Blaine said.

* Good plants for garden railroading include: Irish or Scotch moss to simulate lawns; miniature elms help create scale; and dwarf alberta spruce, which can be planted in groves to create a miniature forest.

* It’s traditional to celebrate the completion of your garden railroad with a golden spike party. More information on garden railroading at www.gardentrains.org.

Jessica Walliser
Freelance Columnist
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Tribune-Review Horticulturist Jessica Walliser co-hosts ‘The Organic Gardeners’ at 7 a.m. Sundays on KDKA Radio. She is the author of several gardening books, including ‘Grow Organic’ and ‘Good Bug, Bad Bug.’

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By Jessica Walliser

Published: Saturday, July 6, 2013, 9:00 p.m.

Updated 16 hours ago

Question: I have an angel wing begonia that is over 7 feet tall. It never blooms. Do you know why?

Answer: First off, kudos to you for growing such a large begonia! Angel wings are among my favorite types of begonias, and they are an excellent choice for shady garden areas. Since yours is so large, I’m going to assume you grow it in a container as a patio plant during the warmer months and then as a houseplant in the winter.

Angel wing begonias are a hybrid of two types of begonias. They derive their common name from the elongated, wing-like shape of their leaves. The foliage of some cultivars is mottled with white or silver spots and blotches. Flowers are often white, pink or red and should occur steadily throughout the summer months and then sporadically during the winter.

Like most other types of begonias, angel wings thrive in tropical conditions — high humidity, moderate moisture and dappled sunlight. Keep the plant shaded in the heat of the afternoon to prevent sunscald on the leaves.

If you have the plant in these conditions and it still fails to bloom, it may be time to repot it with some fresh, high-quality potting soil. If it has been in the same container for three or more years, you may want to consider moving it into a slightly larger pot. Repotting is best done just before active growth in April or early May.

In the meantime, you should begin an in-season fertilization program for your begonia. Use an organic, water-soluble fertilizer (my favorites are liquid kelp and fish hydroslate) every three weeks from March through August. Dilute it with the irrigation water according to label instructions. Do not fertilize with any products containing more nitrogen than phosphorous as this will cause the plant to generate more growth at the expense of flower production.

Another thing you may want to consider is giving your plant a good haircut. Angel wing begonias are quite tolerant of heavy pruning, and doing so will help manage the size and often promotes flowering. You can even root the branches you trim by dipping their ends in rooting hormone and inserting them into a pot of sterile potting mix.

Horticulturist Jessica Walliser co-hosts “The Organic Gardeners� at 7 a.m. Sundays on KDKA Radio. She is the author of several gardening books, including “Grow Organic� and “Good Bug, Bad Bug.� Her website is www.jessicawalliser.com.

Send your gardening or landscaping questions to tribliving@tribweb.com or The Good Earth, 503 Martindale St., Third Floor, D.L. Clark Building, Pittsburgh, PA 15212.

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July 6th 1:14 am | Seth Kantner
 
 

Tip No. 1: Water.

For nearly 20 years now, June has been my traditional time to travel to villages, running Maniilaq Association’s garden project.

When the ice breaks up on the Kobuk, I have to boat away from my birthplace and lifelong home, and go to work. The land is lit in sun, the river flooding, birds singing and the beavers busy all night in their lakes. It’s a bountiful and beautiful time of year and I don’t much want to leave.

But I grew up with a tradition of folks seeking summer work — commercial fishing and construction jobs — and this job is a short-season one, and linked directly to endless sunlight. As a result the work is manic and rewarding and stressful — like in nature, I guess — all those blueberries and fireweed and lousewort’s leaping to life in spring. All the spruce tips greening, the willows and alders and birches leafing out, swans and geese and loons laying eggs, and thousands of caribou having kids. None of them waste a moment, and I enjoy their tight schedule.

Tip No. 2: Everything needs love and care.

After spending Breakup on ice and walking the tundra, every village I travel to is an incredible oasis of wrecked equipment. Trucks with flat tires slump where they died; new snowgoes, wrecked snowgoes, upside down half-dismantled snowgoes; boats buried in tall young willows, and four-wheelers in all stages of death and disrepair.

Lurking back in the brush are the yellow monsters, heavy equipment randomly rusting behind homes and city office buildings — backhoes and dozers, graters and dump trucks and loaders left after countless construction projects over the decades.

Landing in Kobuk, my assistant, Linnea Wik and I hurry down the steps of the Era Alaska Caravan into sweltering heat. The pilots race to unload case after case of Pepsi. I marvel at the irony — how these pilots stay in great shape, handling so much canned pop.

This heat wave arrived directly after a frigid fog off the coast ice. I’m wilting and lusting after one of those blue cans though I don’t drink pop. Linnea has been in California; she smiles in the sun and carries boxes of plants across the dusty gravel.

I head for the shore, to search for our program rototiller. The sun burns my shoulders. The leaves are green along the riverbank. I wish a cloud would appear in the sky. I spot the handles of the tiller in Alex Sheldon’s yard. Shedding sled dogs rise in the heat to growl at me.

I’ve known Alex since I was a kid. He’s an Inupiaq man, handsome and humorous. Fifty years back he was friends with Linnea’s and my parents—back before all this clutter came to the Arctic. Later, he ran the Iditarod, and one winter borrowed my lead dog, Murphy, to run around the village. Now he’s out of town, and the recent flood has made rubble of his yard. The red Troybuilt tiller is forlorn, packed with mud and grass and wet caribou hair. When I pull the starter I hear sand grating. The exhaust coughs up orange rusty water. It’s depressing. I used to love small engines, and this one needs a lot of that now.

Linnea and I give up on the machine; we haul shovels and rakes and her pride and joy—her broadfork–to Nina Harvey’s garden to till the soil. Along the sleepy street we acquire a young man on a bicycle. He rides circles around us. He’s wiry and thin, and talks more and faster and louder than villagers generally do. “I’m Guy Moyer. The Guy Moyer, I like to say, since my grandfather Guy Moyer passed away. He was a great gardener. I’m contemplating having a garden. I’m cultivating the thought.”

Within a few minutes Guy makes use of my entire repertoire of little big words: nemesis, detrimental, exponential, dichotomy, etc. “I’m like an XM radio,” he says. “What channel do you want to hear?”

For the next two hours while we work, he rattles on. Nina gets worn down by the chatter, or overheated, and she climbs the steps up to her house. Guy tells stories, always returning to details of stealing carrots from his grandfather’s garden, the joy of plucking a large one, the feel of rubbing it clean on his shirt. He even does a Rambo-like imitation of himself as a five-year-old, making a night raid on Guy Moyer’s famed garden. He crouches behind fireweeds, pretending to inhale the “longs” he used to find (unfinished cigarette butts) and then sprints toward the rows we’ve tilled.

“I call them aisles,” he says, moving fast. “Not rows. I looked for the little markers. You know why? To find the carrot aisles.”

I find myself wishing for a pencil, to write down his words. My memory is useless for these things; my mind like one of those automatic toilets at the Anchorage airport — WHOOSH — flushing randomly before I want it to, everything gone. I wish someone would line this dude out with his own Inupiaq comedy show on TV. From the far end of Nina’s garden the sunshine of Linnea’s smile agrees with me.

Tip No. 3: Talk to your plants.

From Kobuk, George Douglas boats us and our plants down to Shungnak. Before we leave, Guy offers George a pound of bread yeast. Apparently the Kobuk school gave out pounds of it this spring. “Thought you might want to make pizza,” Guy says. George says no thanks, he has plenty. In my mind I’m thinking, Yeah, right, guys. You’re talking homebrew.

George swings a blue 36-pack of Pepsi into his boat. “It’s the quality, not the quantity,” he says when I question him about his purchase. I nod, wondering about sunstroke. Maybe I have it.

The boat ride is splendid, just in time to save me from melting. At Shungnak we disperse plants, and then hide out in the clinic, letting the sun swing north.

At 9 p.m., we head to work again. Shungnak is more wrecked vehicles, with a backdrop of stunningly beautiful scenery, the tundra a huge green fling to the mountains at the pale blue edge of the sky. It’s stifling out still, the Death Star glaring from the north. Linnea and I assist a woman named Johanna planting her tilled silt soil. She has a cloud of kids and quickly more show up. It’s fun, but stressful with so many little feet trampling around the unfenced garden.

“I could plant?” a little boy asks. He’s eight, maybe. I start to answer, but from the lake in the middle of town I hear the chortling call of a grebe. I pause, call to the bird. The serious little boy asks what kind of duck it is, and I tell him of searching for grebe eggs, when I was a kid.

“Let’s go look,” he urges. “You want to? Come on. I find some last year.”

I’m surprised. I remember my brother and me searching with kayaks. The eggs weren’t easy to find. I’d like to join the boy, to acknowledge and encourage him. But we have work to do. “We have to work,” I say.

When we are done, George strolls up wearing trunks and a tanktop. He hands me a shopping bag. Inside are huge wedges of homemade pizza, hot still, with corn meal on the bottom of the crust, and fresh red peppers, olives and pepperoni on top. Open-mouthed, Linnea and I stare into the bag, not believing our fortune.

We stroll toward our next job, famished and searching for shade. Finally we sit on a dusty plywood box to eat. The little boy appears again. He has a grebe egg in his hand. How did he find it so fast? “Let’s go look more,” he urges. “Come on.”

“I have to work,” I say, agonizingly. “I know it doesn’t look it, sitting here eating. But we have to.” I explain how to check if the egg is good–with a cup of water—and that a floater should go back in the nest.

The little boy goes away again, and an old friend saunters up. He tells us the boy’s name, of him setting rabbit snares by himself, and how it was him who found the man down along the river. He tells of suicide and hardship and abandonment. “He’s the one who found the body.”

In sober silence we walk down to Wesley Wood’s old garden. It’s cooler there by the water, and Wesley’s daughters and relatives are turning the mucky soil. The bugs come out and join us. After midnight Linnea and I carry our tools up the hill. Some of our plants left outside have been stolen. Kids play by the steps of the tribal office. One of them is the little boy. “How to grow?” he asks, so serious.

I hand him a cabbage start, explaining as best I can. Our plants are drooped, wilted yet again today. I’m hot and tired, so impressed, and nearly hopeless. “Here,” I say. “These are the roots.”

Tip # 4: Love your garden.

In Ambler, after dispersing plants, I chat with Gladys Jones. She tells me she and Lawrence are building a log cabin at camp now. Previously, they built their own home, and then a grocery store, too, that they manage together.

Her words and accomplishments seem surreal here in the dusty and worn tribal office. “Where did you find such an energetic husband?” I joke thoughtlessly.

“I think it’s me,” Gladys says with a small smile. “And I want to study to be a physician’s assistant. It’s good being busy.”

Later, the villages and people begin to blur. In Noorvik, we rent a boat ride upriver to Kiana. The drivers turn out to be two smiling teenaged girls, Tinmiaq and Iriqtaq Hailstone. “We’ve just did three more episodes for our reality show,” they tell us proudly. I nod blankly; I’ve never owned a TV. I’m worried about these cabbage plants in the open boat. The girls turn to Linnea, explaining the show.

Working in Kiana late into the night, we’re accompanied by two girls, aged four and five, Danielle and Shayden. They’re sun-cooked, red-cheeked, their bare arms and legs lumpy with bug welts. They watch and help and never complain, all the while squinting and scratching and waving away mosquitoes. Only once Shayden holds out a can of WD-40, asking quietly, “This one is bug dope?”

In Deering, Marlene Moto wears a back brace like something out of a science fiction movie. Somehow she scurries across a maze of dog diggings, to point out where she wants another garden. She stands staring off across the distant sweep of land, like she’s done that every day of her life.

In Kivalina, at the last garden, my new tiller won’t run. Again Linnea happily presses her human-powered broadfork into the soil. I give up and join her. Beside us the Swan ladies cut blubber off ugruk hides. Laughter drifts over from their work. Old Joe Swan putters with the little tiller engine. “You got the power,” he croons to it.

“Is he a rototiller whisperer?” Linnea murmurs.

“I’ve heard of talking to plants,” I tell Joe. “But not to engines.”

“I’m more accustomed to hearing people swear at them,” Linnea whispers again.

“Oh, you have to talk to them,” Joe says. “You’ve got the power…”

Smiling, Linnea and I turn back to the soil. Occasionally we pull out a shard of glass, a chunk of rusted steel, caribou teeth, a .22 cartridge. Suddenly I remember something Guy blurted out up in Kobuk. “I like to stay positive,” he said. “Too many people here hook both wires up to the negative terminal.”

I think about those words, and my past and future, our region’s past and future, as we continue gently pressing tiny turnip starts into the dark earth. And watering them.

 

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Contact us about this article at editor@thebristolbaytimes.com

As soon as things dry out, get going on some of your summer gardening chores. The rain has undoubtedly set you back some, and may have even caused you to forego some of your usual activities in the landscape and garden. Just remember that you don’t want to tramp through soggy soil unless you have to. If you go out to pick tomatoes, it will compact the soil.

Watch out for Japanese beetles. This is their time of year, and this year they seem to be quite prolific. Several products are on the market to help control them, but any spray or dust has to be reapplied after a rain. You can remove the beetles by hand, dropping them into an empty milk jug, or knock them into a pail of soapy water. You might also try using a hand-vac to remove them if you can do so without damaging foliage.

Keep the blooms on annuals and perennials coming by deadheading as soon as flowers begin to fade. Hopefully, you have been able to cut and arrange some bouquets from your garden flowers. Wait until later in the summer or early fall to let a few flowers remain on and form seed that you can save.

Look for sales. Check out the discount and sales sections of garden centers. Give plants a good looking over to be sure you can bring them back from the brink. Some stores will also be cutting prices on seeds and supplies, so watch for deals and stock up.

During the month of July, you can make second plantings of pole string beans, pole lima beans and bush lima beans. Plant Southern peas and rutabagas. Start transplants of collards, broccoli, cabbage, eggplant and tomatoes.

A frequently asked question among gardeners is, “How late can I prune my azaleas?” July, before the plant sets its flower buds for next year, is the latest you should prune if you expect to have flowers in the spring.

Weeds have thrived in this wet weather — in the lawn, the landscape and the vegetable garden. Hoeing and hand-pulling are the best ways to handle weeds around food crops. Put down a good layer of mulch to discourage leftover seeds from sprouting.

When using weed killers, either spray or granular, around ornamentals and in lawns, read directions carefully. Be sure the product is labeled for the specific weeds you are trying to get rid of. Also be sure it is labeled as safe for use on the type of grass or around the ornamentals you do not want to harm. Always avoid applying herbicides on windy days or right before a rain.

Planning an extended out-of-town trip or vacation? If you have houseplants or a vegetable garden, you may want to ask a gardening friend to watch over things for you, watering and harvesting as needed. You can return the favor when they go on vacation or let them keep the produce they pick in exchange.

Have you snapped some pictures of your garden yet this year? And I don’t mean that new pond in your backyard created by our massive amounts of rain. When the sun shines, get out your camera and snap pictures of the flowers and plants that are really outdoing themselves this year. If nothing else, you can post them on Facebook.

Remember to keep tabs on local pick-your-own operations and roadside stands for fruits and vegetables that you don’t grow yourself and that are only available for a short time period. Blueberries, for example, are in full production right now, so don’t let the opportunity to load up on them pass you by.

Contact the writer: 138 Nature’s Trail, Bamberg, SC 29003.