Summer Gardening Tips: When to Prune, Mulch and Plant

Enlarge Image Image Gallery Learn from last summer's mistakes with these summer gardening tips.

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After a season of drought, the water in my pond has dropped by several feet, stranding the Louisiana irises that grow around its former edge. The water lilies have become land lilies. To make up for the lack of rainfall, I have been watering the herb garden all summer. The herbs have been responding joyfully, flopping this way and that. Everything desperately needs to be cut back. Low holly hedges surrounding the herb garden are twice as wide as they should be.

As summer wanes, I see lots of steps I could have taken to prevent the current wild look. A “stitch in time” would have made all the difference, and I’d be looking out over a well-groomed garden now.

If I could do it all over again . . .

I would mulch.

When the herbs are still pushing up and I’ve finished pulling the chickweed, I can actually see the ground to apply mulch. This late in the summer, it’s hard to push sprawling catmint (Nepeta ‘Six Hills Giant’) or overgrown feverfew (Tanacetum parthenium) out of the way to get wood chips or pine straw on the soil. Mulch would have helped ­conserve moisture and moderate soil temperature as well as unifying the plantings visually. I like to apply 2 to 3 inches of light summer mulch early in the year, but this year I never got around to it.

I would edge.

Spring is the best time to cut a sharp edge between the borders and the lawn. When the soil is moist, it’s much easier to cut into the sod, and the resulting edge stays sharp with just minor touch-ups during the summer. Now, the soil has baked dry, and I find myself wishing I had a brick cutter instead of an edger to do the job I put off last spring.

I would prune.

My dwarf yaupon holly (Ilex vomitoria ‘Schillings’) is no longer just encircling my herb garden; it’s encroaching on the herbs. I should have pruned the hedges back severely last February or March. Drastic pruning this late in the season will encourage new growth that may not be properly hardened off by the time the first frost rolls in. I’ve marked next year’s calendar for the first balmy day after Valentine’s Day; I’m renting a gas-powered hedge trimmer to shape things up in a hurry.

I would stake.

If only I had pushed some bamboo stakes down into the earth when I planted my lily bulbs last spring and fitted some tomato cages around the young growth of thalictrums, angelicas and delphiniums when they were still small. It’s difficult to go in after the fact and “corset up” mature plants. Some of the lilies have soared to 5 and 6 feet in height. When they’re upright, they look grand, but a windstorm or a severe thunderstorm can break the stalks. Early staking could have prevented this heartache.

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