Summer Planting Guide

Establishing a summer garden is easy as long as you take the proper precautions

Many people write off summertime as a poor time to plant, but by choosing an appropriate day and taking the proper precautions, your plants will establish themselves quickly and you'll have instant blooms that you won't have to wait all spring to enjoy.

Water

An appropriate level of water is important to any planting, but it takes extra importance during the summer. With arid temperatures your plants will naturally demand more moisture. Even if you're planting in damp soil or drizzly weather, new plantings should receive a good soaking when they go into the ground. This initial soaking will settle the soil around the roots and expedite the time it takes for the plant to start drawing water from the ground on its own.

Continual watering after the plant is in the ground (typically 2-3 times a week) will ensure that your root structure will grow and establish in its new soil. By following this pattern, most plants will begin to establish themselves within a week after being put in the ground.

When to Plant

Choose the day you plant carefully and know your limits. Planting in the mid-afternoon on a hot summer day won't do your plants or yourself any good. You should also be on the lookout for windy days. Heavy gusts can quickly strip new trees of their leaves. If this happens when the plant is not taking up water from its roots yet, it can cause serious stress.

The best days for summer planting are cloudy ones. Without the sun blazing down, you and your new plants will have a more pleasant planting experience.

Enjoy Your Garden!

Summer planting provides you with an opportunity to get out in the garden and enjoy your plants when they're looking their best. Just as strolling along your garden at night can reveal new discoveries, summer gardening puts you side-by-side with your plants in their mid-season form.

The growing season in Maine is a short one, so why limit it to the springtime? By carefully watching the weather and making sure your plants are getting the water they need, you can extend the gardening season and find new ways to enjoy your plantings.

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Controlling Japanese Beetles

Japanese Beetles can be identified by their copper wing covers and white tufts on the sides

Japanese Beetles are devastating pests that feed on nearly 300 different species of landscape plants, usually starting at the top of the plant and working their way downward. A single beetle is usually not a cause for concern, but a large group can cause considerable damage to your plants. Adult beetles will chew the tissue between veins of foliage, giving your plants a hollow, unsightly appearance and making them more susceptible to other diseases.

You can identify Japanese Beetles by their hard, copper colored wing covers. Measuring nearly half an inch in length, these beetles will also display small white tufts under the wing covers on each side, with an additional pair at the tip of the abdomen.

Natural Controls

When possible, we always stress natural solutions to insect problems. Unfortunately, the hard body of the Japanese Beetle make them unattractive to most predators such as birds. There are a few species of parasitic flies that have shown the ability to control the beetle (especially here in the Northeast) by laying eggs that attach to the back of the beetles, but since this treatment method can take time to develop, this strategy is generally best for small infestations that will allow the larvae time to hatch while damage levels remain low.

Collecting Beetles

Another alternative for low levels of activity is hand collecting. Since the presence of beetles on a plant attracts more beetles, by removing beetles daily by hand from a plant you can stop the proliferation of these pests. The easiest way to remove beetles from small plants is to shake the plants early in the morning (about 7 a.m.) when temperatures are low and the beetles are sluggish. The beetles may be killed by shaking them into a bucket of soapy water.

Trapping Beetles

Japanese Beetle traps attract the beetles with two types of baits. One mimics the scent of female beetles and is highly attractive to males. The other bait is a sweet-smelling food-type lure that attracts both sexes. This combination of ingredients is such a powerful attractant that traps can draw in thousands of beetles in a day.

Since these traps can often be too effective and end up drawing even more beetles to the area, strategic site placement is critical to the success of this method. Place your traps away from your landscape on the outskirts of your property in an attempt to not only catch these critters, but also to lead them away from your plants in general.

Insecticides

If a problem is more severe and natural methods of collecting or trapping beetles simply won't work, an approved insecticide is usually the next course of action. Since garden environments and the level of the problem dictate the best chemical treatment, we recommend that you contact us here at Estabrook's and speak with one of our garden professionals about the best treatment method.