Summer passes very quickly, and we so want to extend the bright flowering of colorful annuals, take care of preserving some of them by next year. What work needs to be done already at the beginning of July, despite the fact that this is still the “crown of summer”?
At this time, you can already dig up the bulbs of tulips, hyacinths and daffodils, as soon as their leaves begin to fade and turn yellow. Dig up the tulips first. Dug out bulbs should be sorted into light boxes and then placed under cover or lightly covered with light mats. On the same day, they must be removed to a dry, ventilated room to dry the bulbs. The ideal place for this would be the attic. After the tulips are harvested, it’s time to deal with daffodils. We remind you that these flowers are grown in one place for no more than four years. Hyacinth bulbs, like tulips, need to be dug up annually. For five days, the bulbs are dried, and then they are cleaned of the remnants of the earth, excess scales, tangled roots, and the baby is separated. For storage, it is necessary to prepare loosely knocked out wooden boxes, into which they scatter a thin layer of bulbs of perennials. You can choose a shed or attic for storage. At the same time, it is useful to feed long-blooming annuals: sage, ageratum, calendula, verbena, aster, snapdragon, zinnia, petunia, marigolds.
To do this, we use an infusion of mullein (1:10) or chicken manure (1:20), where superphosphate (20 grams) and potassium sulfate (15 grams) are added per bucket of diluted infusion. A bucket of the prepared solution can feed 10-15 plants. If the weather is dry outside, then after feeding, in order to avoid burns, the plants are watered with clean water. Asters, unlike other annuals, require top dressing again with the same solution when they pick up buds. During wet weather, powdery spots may appear on the buds, leaves, shoots of roses. This phenomenon is characteristic of a formidable disease, quite common and harmful – powdery mildew. In this case, you can help spraying the bushes with drugs “Impact”, “Topaz”, “Vectra”, “Skor”. In addition, the list of first aid measures for this disease includes spraying with a copper-soap emulsion. It is prepared from 250 grams of green soap and 25 grams of copper sulfate dissolved in 10 liters of water. You can also use 0.4% cineb or 0.25% foundationazole. Twice in July, with an interval of two weeks, clematis is fed with infusion of chicken manure (1:20) or mullein (1:10) with the addition of 10 grams of potassium sulfate, 20 grams of superphosphate, 10 grams of ammonium nitrate to a bucket of water. The prepared infusion is spent on three to four plants. July is the right time for phlox cuttings. Take a close look at the shoots and choose non-lignified. If lignification has already begun from below, then take the upper parts of the shoots. The cutting must have two buds with one internode. We make the lower cut under the buds, higher than half a centimeter of the second pair of kidneys – upper. The upper leaves of the shoot should be cut in half, and the lower ones are cut off completely. A box of ground or a well -prepared ridge is suitable as a seedling for cuttings. Fertile garden land with a thickness of 10-15 centimeters should be covered with clean river sand (2-4 cm) on top. Prepared cuttings are buried in the ground for a couple of centimeters, observing the distance between them 4-5 centimeters in a row, and between rows -6-8 cm. The seedling must be closed with existing covering products. For this purpose, either a film stretched onto the arcs, or glazed frames are suitable.