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Garden Help Desk: Tips to keep container gardens looking their best throughout summer

By USU Extension - Special to the Daily Herald | Jul 6, 2024
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Simply pointing your hose or watering wand at the foliage in a container isn't enough to give the container a good watering. Hanging baskets like this can become drought stressed because water will run off the outside of the foliage without a little extra effort at watering time.
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Dead blooms are an eyesore in a container garden and should be removed.
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Deadheading the lobelia, pentas and million bells will freshen the appearance of this container and encourage additional blooms.
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The blisters on apple or pear leaves can become quite dark by mid-summer.
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The light green blisters from eriophyid mite feeding on apple or pear leaves in the spring are easy to overlook at first.

July is the month when hanging baskets and container gardens start looking a little worn, so today I’m providing a review of how to keep them looking their best through the end of the summer.

There are several things you can do to rehabilitate your hanging basket.

Check carefully at least once a week for insects and other pests. Look along the stems, in the flower buds, on the underside of leaves and on the soil around the base of the plants.

Supplement fertilizer if it’s needed. The warmer the weather, the more quickly a slow-release fertilizer will be released. A fertilizer that claims it will feed your plants for four months won’t last that long in our hot summer weather. Refresh the slow-release or start supplementing with quarter-strength fertilizer when you water.

Trim or pinch back overgrown stems, clean out faded leaves and remove spent flowers. Not every flowering plant drops it spent blooms quickly. Deadheading (removing old flowers) is very important in keeping those plants looking good. Petunias bloom on newer growth — basically on the ends of their trailing stems. Little by little, a petunia basket can look like a green skirt with a floral ruffle around the hem.

Deadheading trailing plants like petunias is a little different than just snipping off old flowers. Every week, cut back one or two of the longest trailing stems by two-thirds or more and you’ll always have some fresh green growth and flowers up near the basket, plus some longer, flowering stems, too.

Replace underperforming plants in mixed containers. Container garden plants that haven’t been doing well (never really filled out, look sickly) can be removed and replaced. Carefully scoop out the root ball of the plant, gently loosen the soil at the edges of the hole and tuck in a new plant. Backfill with a little more soil if needed and then water the container really well.

Water completely whenever you water. Thoroughly soak the potting soil when you water. You want to see some water drain out the bottom of the container each time. A deep soak a little less often is better than a light sprinkle two or three times a day. Make sure the water is going onto the soil, not washing over the foliage and past the sides of the container.

None of these suggestions take more than a few minutes, but those few minutes once a week will keep your baskets and containers looking their best.

My pear tree has blister mites on the leaves. I’ve heard that pears can get russeting on the skin if there are lots of blister mites on the tree. Will my pears still be OK to eat?

You’ve heard right; heavy blister mite feeding can cause russeting on the skin of the pears. Fortunately, the russeting is only skin deep. Your pears will be perfectly safe to eat.

You didn’t say whether you’ve received any information about preventing blister mite damage in the future, so let’s review what you can do for your pear tree or apple trees that may also have blister mite damage.

Blister mites are eriophyid mites. Microscopic in size, they easily overwinter under leaf bud scales on your tree, migrate onto emerging leaves in the spring and will feed inside the leaves where their feeding causes light green “blisters” that darken over the summer. They’re protected from insecticidal sprays while inside the leaves.

When the temperatures cool in the fall, the mites will leave the blisters on the leaves and travel back onto the tree to shelter under the leaf bud scales again.

Trees can tolerate low to moderate populations of blister mites, but high populations can reduce the vigor of your tree by reducing photosynthesis. This may justify treating your tree to prevent the problem next year.

If you need to treat your tree, spray it after you’ve harvested your pears this fall but before the leaves begin drop. One application of horticultural oil, carbaryl or sulfur should be applied. You can combine horticultural oil and carbaryl, but do not combine oil and sulfur. Make sure you get thorough coverage, including on the underside of leaves.

Doing dormant oil spray in the spring can also help to reduce the mite population.

Pear and apple leaves with blister mite damage will drop earlier than healthy leaves, so don’t be alarmed if that happens.