News from Wedel's Nursery, Florist and Garden Center

Happy July! It sure is amazing how fast the days and months fly by and, as our landscapes and gardens near their peak of summer bloom, green-thumbers need to take a step back and smell the roses. It's easy to become so absorbed in planting and tending our garden, lawn and landscape that we fail to take time to drink in all the beauty in our own outdoor living area.

This is a perfect time, too, to take a look at your annuals. If you find that some just aren't performing it could be because of too much sun or too little sun. You might need to reconsider amending the soil to add organic material or improve drainage. There is ample time to liven up your landscape with new, colorful annuals that will add brilliance to faded, dull areas.

Encourage annual flowers by feeding them every ten days with Bloom Booster water-soluable fertilizer. Pinch back petunias and remove dead flowers and seed heads from annuals to promote more flower growth. Petunias, marigolds and many other annual flowering plants will bloom until frost with a little extra care now.

How do your hanging baskets look? It is easy to forget to water them as often as we should and, sometimes, if we get an overabundance of rain, they can get too much water. If your hanging baskets are looking a bit bedraggled, stop by Wedel's. You'll find the perfect replacement to bring life back to your porch, patio or deck.

Here are some ideas to help you enjoy even more nature in your outdoor living area. Attract hummingbirds and butterflies with butterfly bush, sedums, columbine, trumpet vine, butterfly plant, monarda (bee balm), yarrow, coreopsis, cone flower, hollyhock, hosta, bleeding heart, anemone, bergenia and perennial geraniums. If you'd like to provide food for a variety of birds consider trees and vines that will attract them to your backyard. This is an excellent time to enhance your bird habitat with autumn brilliance shadblow, prairie fire crabapple, harvest gold crabapple, Washington hawthorne, dogwood trees that fruit in early fall, trumpet vine, porcelain vine and dropmore scarlet honeysuckle.

Something that is often overlooked is providing water to your backyard visitors. You'll be surprised how popular a birdbath will be with any number of birds. Provide a source of clean, fresh water and birds will flock to your yard. Change the water in your birdbath everyday or every other day. As you are watering your flowers or vegetable garden, empty the birdbath and fill it with fresh water. Clean water is healthier for your bird friends and prevents mosquitoes from laying eggs in the birdbath. If you're still concerned about mosquitoes, use a Water Wiggler. The Water Wiggler gently agitates the water and mosquitoes won't lay eggs in moving water.

Now that spring flowering shrubs have finished blooming it is time to shape them up. By shaping up I mean it is time to prune them to the shape you desire for the plant. Many folks hesitate to prune for fear of harming a favorite shrub. I've always felt that pruning never harms, but only improves plants. Pruning will make all shrubs more compact and produce more blooms on a stronger plant.

A word for you vegetable gardeners. For homeowners, there is no registered weed control for sweet corn. I have found that the "old timer's" method works very well. I continually mound up loose soil at the base of corn plants. This not only smothers and controls weeds, but the mounded soil provides for better support and stronger stalks because the air roots grow into the added soil. Hill up or mound sweet corn about every two weeks.

Japanese beetles are out now! If you haven't done it yet, apply Grubex now. Grubex will eliminate grubs and mole crickets when they are newly hatched, before they can cause damage. If you live near a large expanse of unattended turf such as a ball field you will probably notice a large infestation of Japanese beetles. There is a large number of very effective controls to eliminate or limit the damage done by these pests. If you haven't yet been visited by the beetles, consider using a product containing neem oil. Neem offers some repellant action if applied in time.

Keep Japanese beetle numbers at a minimum on choice plants with sprays of all natural 5% pyrethrin canola oil mix or Sevin. Frequent sprays every 3 to 5 days will be necessary during the beetle season. Early treatment, before feeding damage becomes severe will greatly improve control because beetles are attracted to plants by the volatiles released from injured leaves. Traps reduce Japanese beetle populations when set several yards away from valuable plants.