Hi gardeners
I’m hoping those of you who need rain are getting it and
those of you who don’t need it are sending it my way. In my part of Michigan
drought is starting to become a problem in many places. Heat, midsummer sun and
wind increase soil moisture evaporation.
In my garden the Oriental lilies are beginning to bloom,
some are outside my bedroom window and their lovely scent wafts inside at
night. Also blooming are all kinds of
daylilies, four o’clocks, nicotiana, and many varieties of hosta, some of which
can make the air smell nice too. The Black
Eyed Susans are starting to bloom along side Shasta daisies and Echinacea. Golden glow is starting to bloom too, which
is keeping me on alert for Japanese beetles.
I have only seen a few so far.
Annuals are in their glory days, and I am getting ready to
give them a booster dose of fertilizer. My tuberous begonias are gorgeous this
year. There’s a second flush of bloom on the roses. Water hyacinths are
blooming in my little pond and a giant bullfrog has taken up residence there
too.
In the vegetable garden I have tomatoes finally starting to
turn red, baby cukes and a nice sized watermelon. Hopefully the family of
racoons who have started coming to the door all hours of the day looking for
handouts will not eat my produce before I get to it.
I had two very large garter snakes take up residence in my
laundry room, on a shelf 4 feet off the floor where I stored some old
towels. I don’t know how they got inside
but after several days of chasing them away every time I saw them and removing
the towels, they have relocated, and I believe it’s outside. I don’t harm snakes as they are one of the
most beneficial creatures you can have in the garden. (And that’s where they
belong.)
I have an Indigo Bunting pair nesting along the edge of the
old pasture. They like edge habitat and it’s one reason I do mow some of that
space still, wildlife love it. We have had several pairs of Carolina wrens
nesting around the house and they are driving me nuts scolding me whenever I
work in the garden. I am seeing young
hummingbirds, so they are nesting nearby too. All kinds of birds are coming to
the feeders right now. Keep yours full in summer and bird watching is easy.
Japanese Beetles
Yes, they have emerged.
Some places will have heavy numbers of them, and some won’t. If it was
dry in your area last year when they were active, you may have fewer beetles
this year. The eggs they lay in the soil and newly hatched larvae often die if
they dry out and you’ll have fewer adults the next summer.
Japanese beetles have two seasons of doing damage to your
landscape. The larvae are some of those
big ugly grubs in your lawn or garden and they can damage plant roots. Then the
grubs turn into beetles and the real fun begins. Japanese beetles will feed on
dozens of plant species, leaving flowers and foliage a ragged mess if
populations are high. They also eat soft
fruit like grapes, raspberries and blueberries.
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The adult beetles are very hard to control. Treating lawns
and crop fields for the grubs in the spring is a better way to control
populations. But many people don’t want to do that because other soil dwelling
creatures can be harmed too. Several
organic controls exist – such as milky spore disease that kills the grubs, but
they take years to be effective in an area.
Start controlling Japanese beetles as soon as you see the
first ones. As beetles feed, they emit a scent that draws other beetles to the
feeding area. In a week or two your
garden may be heavily infested.
You can hand pick and drop them in soapy water, squish them
or vacuum them up. Neem oil will kill some and cause others to skip eating
treated foliage for a short time. But it’s
not terribly effective and continuously applying it to foliage and flowers damages
the plants. And Neem oil harms beneficial
insects too.
No other home remedies like dawn dish detergent sprayed on
foliage, work. Diatomaceous earth does not work. Don’t waste your time. Even
commercial insecticides sprayed on plants doesn’t usually completely control
the damage, they are hardy beasts.
Systemic insecticides work a bit better if applied about 2 weeks before
the beetles emerge, but the beetles have to eat a bite or two before they are poisoned.
Japanese beetle traps work- but in a suburban/ city
environment you can’t get the traps far enough away from your garden to be
helpful. They actually lure in beetles from a large distance away and they
often eat plants before they make it to the trap. Traps should be at least 100
feet from plants you want to protect- and your neighbor’s plants if they
garden.
Be aware that yellow is highly attractive to the beetles. You could use trap flowers like golden glow, (Rudbeckia
laciniata 'Hortensia), which they love, to lure the beetles away from other
plants, with the same problems as traps. The good news is that the plants usually recover
when beetle feeding ceases in late August.
A note- gardeners hate Japanese beetles and it makes them vulnerable
to scams that promise to get rid of the beetles. And the number of useless and sometimes harmful
home remedies on social media continues to climb. Before trying anything contact your County
Extension office or look up the product on a .edu or .gov or other science
based site.
The products I mention below I purchased myself, I did
not get them free for review nor was I paid to review them. It’s just my
personal opinion I’m sharing.
I’m not real fond of dragging a hose around to water but our
water pressure isn’t a good fit for a sprinkler system so it’s water with a
hose or watch things die. I have a hose system with one main line and 3 hoses
running off that are on a gang valve so I can reach different areas of my
garden. Two of my hoses needed replacing this year so I tried some different
types of hoses rather than the rubber/plastic types.
I hate it when hoses kink.
So, when I was shopping for hoses, I looked for ones that said they didn’t
kink. The first one I bought was a
stainless steel hose. Yes, that’s right,
steel. It looks like a flexible water
line used for home plumbing or a hand held shower nozzle. Bionic Steel is the
brand name I have.
My stainless-steel hose is lightweight, and it doesn’t kink,
but it is flexible. I really like it. You
can easily roll it up in a small circle if you want. It cost about the same as
a good rubber hose. The only drawback to these hoses is that you can’t run over
them with a car or other heavy object because the hose will be crushed, and you
won’t be able to easily repair it.
I was going to go back and order a second stainless steel
hose, but I found a “collapsible” pocket hose when cleaning out my mom’s house
and decided to take it home and try it. I tried these hoses when they first
came out and didn’t like them, they were cheap and quickly developed
leaks.
Unfortunately, I don’t know the name of this pocket hose or
what it cost, but it’s obviously much better made than those older versions. Once again- no kinks and very light
weight. You can’t leave these hoses
turned on full of water because they get stretched out from the water expanding
in the heat and could burst. But if you
remember to turn off the water and squeeze the nozzle until the hose shrinks
up, they do a great job. It basically compacts
down into a small size all on its own that’s easy to store.
I’ve been using this pocket hose in the front of the house,
leaving it attached to the gang valve which is zip tied to the railing of our
ramp. When the hose is turned off and
the nozzle pressed until the water left in it is gone it neatly shrinks up on its
own and I can hang it right beside the gang valve without it being in the
way. After 2 months I’m still pleased
with it.
These pocket hoses probably wouldn’t work well if you ran
over them either and they would puncture fairly easily if you are using them in
some situations where you are dragging them over rough surfaces. And you can’t leave them full of water and
expect them to last long. But if you do
need a new lightweight hose for watering plants do consider one of these newer
pocket hoses. I think you’ll like it.
Power tools
We changed to a battery powered weed whip a couple years ago
and would never go back to heavy, messy gas weed whips. Ours uses little plastic blades instead of
string which are easy to snap on when you need one, rather than string. It works just as well as a gas model and
usually runs as long as we intended to work anyway.
This year I added two new battery powered tools to my stable. One is a handheld grass shears by WorkPro. I love this little thing. When I’m weeding I keep it close by and I can
make a nice close edge on the flower bed- even sliding it under plants drooping
over the edge to trim grass underneath them.
It’s much easier to control around delicate plants than a weed
whip. I use it to trim around my little
water feature and other tight places a weed whip might damage.
This is with the hedge blade
And this little wonder also has a hedge trimming blade you
can put on. Now it doesn’t handle heavy
stems very well, but it whizzes through light weight stems that need shearing
to shape and look nice. This little
helper is light enough for someone like me that has arthritic hands to use
easily. It charges up quickly and simply
by plugging it in, no battery to remove to charge and it lasts a surprisingly long
time on a charge.
The other battery powered tool we are liking is our battery
powered lawn mower. Yes – lawn mower. It’s
a 19 inch cut push mower that looks much like a gas mower. You insert the battery in a slot under the
hood and push a button on the handle to start it. No pulling on a cord. It works just as good as a gas mower, but it’s
quieter, easy to start, and doesn’t require oil or gas. It doesn’t pollute the
air either.
It mows for about 30 minutes on a charge. Some people buy two batteries with these so
they can exchange batteries and keep mowing.
We just use it for trimming since we have a riding mower so the charge
time on one battery is usually good for us. And it charges fairly quickly. We chose to get a steel deck mower, I heard
the plastic deck ones are prone to breaking.
The cost of these mowers is about the same as a regular gas push mower. Ours is from Greenworks.
The picture from Amazon of our new mower
We also have a battery powered chain saw called the JawSaw that’s
excellent for taking down medium sized branches and quickly chopping up downed
limbs. It’s a little heavy and still requires chain oil. My husband decided to purchase a battery
powered chainsaw with a 6 inch blade that’s air cooled. It requires neither oil
or gas and is lightweight. It does quick
work on saplings and branches up to a few inches in diameter.
Battery powered tools are much improved from just a few years
ago. They are stronger and the batteries
last longer and charge faster. You can
often get several tools that run on the same battery. If you need a new power tool, consider a
battery operated one. They are great for older adults and those with mobility/arthritis
issues. Greenworks and WorkPro are good
brands for battery operated garden tools. Read descriptions and reviews carefully
before you buy as quality varies a lot.
“Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass
under trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of the water, or
watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.”
John Lubbock
Have a great summer afternoon
Kim
No part of this blog may be reproduced without
permission.
Contact Kim at kimwillis151@gmail.com
