August Gardening Calendar 2025

August Gardening Calendar

July and August forecast is predicting above average temperatures for most of the United States. For the past two weeks there have been heat advisory warnings daily and to use precautions while working outdoors. The best times to garden in an area that has heat advisories is early morning or late afternoon. When we garden during these heat advisories it is recommended to protect yourself from heat dangers by:

·         Stay out of the sun, if possible.

·         Drink plenty of cool water whether you are thirsty or not.

·         Wear loose, light-colored clothing, and sun screen. Try wearing clothes that use the Dri-Fit technology.

·         Try to schedule outdoor activities early mornings or late afternoons.

·         While working outdoors pace yourself and take a break when tired.

Prune Tropical Hibiscus you plan to bring indoors for the winter. Plan to place your plant in the sunniest window during the winter months. Trim back enough to fit your location indoors and bring your Hibiscus inside around December or before first frost. After pruning check your Hibiscus for insects and spray with appropriate insecticide. Now is a good time to fertilize your Hibiscus. Hibiscuses are heavy feeders and should be fertilized monthly.

Remove faded blooms and seedpods on your Crepe Myrtles. You may be rewarded with more blooms before first frost. The recommended fertilizer formulation for Crepe Myrtles is 10-15-9 or a similar combination. Don’t forget to fertilize your Crepe Myrtles.

Roses prune out dead canes, and weak, bushy growth. Cut back tall, vigorous bushes by 1/3 the original plant height. Fertilize roses on a monthly basis until October. After pruning you should see new blooms coming in about 6 weeks.

Azaleas Lace bugs on your Azaleas increase rapidly in summer. Check your Azaleas for insects. The damaged caused by these sucking insects looks like tiny white dots and the entire leaf is almost completely white. Spray with appropriate insecticide labeled for Azalea Lace Bugs.

Perennials Can be divided in August and transplanted else where in the garden. Perennials such as: summer phlox, peony, iris, and daylily. Perennials that have finished blooming for their season can be divided also.

Lawns check your grass for insects, especially for chinch bugs and white grubs. These insects are most active in the summer months. The signs for chinch bugs are irregular circles, and the grass is thin, and then dies. For white grubs, the signs are irregular circles, and the grass is loosely rooted. Check the soil underneath the loosely rooted grass by digging up the soil, the grubs should be about an inch down in the soil, if you have them. Apply the appropriate insecticide and follow the package directions carefully. Lawn Mower Blades should be sharpened once each summer. A sharpened lawn mower blade prevents shredding the grass, and giving your lawn a nice, clean cut.

Mulch check all shrub beds and trees for mulch thickness. We are experiencing extreme heat this summer and shrubs and trees that have 2 to 3 inches of mulch keeps the roots cool and helps the soil retain moisture. In winter 2-3 inches of mulch will keep the soil warm through the winter season.

Fruits and Vegetables Start planning your fall vegetable garden this August. Till the soil and add Gypsum and Composted Cottonseed hull. The additives lower the alkalinity and helps the soil stay loose. Tomatoes, Peppers, and Beans should be planted by August 1^st. Starter plants usually are available by August 15^th. Pick the varieties of tomatoes that mature in 65-70 days. Cool season vegetables, broccoli, carrots, lettuce, cabbage, cauliflower, swiss chard, collards, spinach, kale, and snow peas are planted in September. Blackberry and Raspberry plants at this time of year have a tendency to trail along the ground. Take the trailing canes or runners and tie them back to their arbor. For more information on planting fall vegetables click to read my blog post Here. Seeds for cool season vegetables can be started now for planting in September.

Seeds sow cool season seeds of snapdragons, dianthus, pansies, calendulas, and sweet alyssum to be planted in mid to late fall. Sow seeds of bluebonnets and other spring wildflowers this month to be planted in the garden. The wildflowers will establish a root system during the fall for spring blooms.

Tropical Foliage Plants Check plants that are spending the summer outdoors for insects. Use an insecticidal soap, if needed. Your houseplants can be fertilized biweekly with a water-soluble plant food. Hibiscus and More has a wonderful selection of gardening books. Click to order.

August is a good time to start thinking about fall bulbs. Mail-order houses usually have early bird specials for consumers who order early.

Discover the beauty of nature with Hibiscus and More, where you can explore a stunning collection of fine art prints that bring the garden to your home.

Cheryl Meola’s Plant Photography on Merchandise. The website features clothing, home décor, puzzles, and greeting cards to customize for any occasion. https://cherylann-meola.pixels.com

Floral & Foliage Stock Photography.  Stock Photography.

Botanical & Seasonal Stock Photography. Stock Photography.

Need more gardening advice? Follow our BlogSpot for current sales, daily specials, and sound gardening advice. Simply click on Join This Site Link Under Followers. Sign Up Is Free. View Current Blog Post Click Here.

Have a wonderful summer. Stay hydrated, keep cool, and go to the shade when starting to feel weak. Happy Gardening.

©Cheryl Ann Meola - Certified Texas Nursery Professional #1282

April Gardening Calendar

                                  April Gardening Calendar

Start planning for Spring. April is the perfect month to start planning your garden for the current year. As a refresher for last year’s thoughts, ideas or plants you were thinking about purchasing, dust off your gardening journal to see what changes or additions you wanted to make this year. A garden is always evolving.

Irrigation: In zones where your irrigation was turned off for the winter. Irrigation should be checked each year in spring. Turn on the irrigation to make sure the irrigation heads are working properly. Check for leaks, cracked heads, and spray direction. Some issues you may be able to fix yourself, if not call an irrigation specialist.

Roses: Your roses should be trimmed between February 12 – 20, if you have not pruned your hybrid tea roses it’s not too late to trim them now. For more information on trimming, caring, and fertilizing your roses click on my blog article on Rose Care.

Vegetable Gardening: Till the soil when you have a designated area for vegetables in your garden. This preventative measure helps to eliminate weeds, insects, and nematodes. Don’t have room for a vegetable garden, but would like to grow your own vegetables? All vegetables can be grown in large planters. The recommended size for vegetables is 16 inches or larger. In fact, that’s how I grow my vegetables each season. Garden center retailers are still reporting skyrocketing sales for vegetable starts and seeds this year versus last year’s sales. Start planning and planting your vegetable garden now to reap the rewards of homegrown vegetables, if you are thinking about having a vegetable garden this year, today is the time to start. Put on your gardening gloves and reap the rewards and benefits of a spring vegetable garden. For more information on Spring VegetableGardening Click Here.

Color Annuals: April is the month to start thinking about replacing your cool weather color annuals with spring and summer annuals. Here are a few of my favorites: Caladiums, Celosia, Coleus, Cosmos, Dahlberg Daisy, Dusty Miller, Gazania, Geranium, Gerbera Daisy, Ivy Geranium, Lantana, Marigolds, Mexican Sunflower, Moss Rose, Periwinkle, Petunia, Primrose, Purslane, Salvia, Snapdragons, Verbena, Wax Begonia, and Zinnia. All of the annuals mentioned can be planted in soil or in containers.

Bulbs: If you have spring bulbs that are still blooming you may want to enjoy a few of the flowers as fresh cuts indoors. On all perennial bulbs, let the foliage die back naturally, as the foliage dies the bulb transports the nutrients from the foliage to the bulb and will use the nutrients from the foliage and stores the nutrients to the bulb for next year’s growth and flowers. As the foliage dies and it may look untidy and displeasing. To alleviate this annoyance, you can pull up the foliage in a bunch and then roll the foliage down as you would a paper bag, and then tie the rolled-up foliage with a rubber band.

Shrubs: Trim your spring flowering shrubs after they finish blooming and fertilize with the appropriate plant food.

Azaleas: Once your azaleas finish blooming trim back to shape. Azaleas bloom on last year’s growth so it is important to trim your Azaleas no later than the middle of June. Azalea’s set their blooms during the fall months, and this is one reason to trim your Azaleas during the time frame that is provided. After pruning your Azaleas, you need to fertilize them with an Azalea plant food and also add a new layer of mulch. Instead of throwing your spent coffee or tea grounds away your Azaleas will benefit from sprinkling the grounds around your Azalea bushes. 

Prune Pampas Grass and other ornamental grasses trim to about 12 to 24 inches. Prune Lantana and Cannas to about 6 to 10 inches. Shape Crepe Myrtles and Altheas and remove old seed heads. Do not hat rack the Crepe Myrtles. Crepe Myrtles do better without being trimmed to 4 – 6 feet above the ground.

Decorate Your Patio With Tropical Color: Now is the time to start thinking about spring-cleaning your patio and your patio furniture. After sprucing up your patio you may want to redecorate the patio for summer fun with tropical plants that really know how to beat the summer heat. Tropical plants will bloom repeatedly throughout the summer until first frost. Here are a few of my tropical color favorites: Allamanda, Bougainvillea, Copper Plant, Hibiscus, Mandevilla, Pentas, and Shrimp Plant. Hibiscusandmore.com features fine art prints of tropical plants. Click Here Fine Art Prints.

Need more gardening advice? Follow our BlogSpot for current sales, daily specials, and sound gardening advice. Simply click on Join This Site Link under Followers. Sign Up Is Free. We don’t share your information. 

For more information on Landscape gardening   Butterfly Gardening and Design

Growing Houseplants in your home or office

Fine Art Prints by Cheryl Ann Meola

Need floral stock photography? Click here. Need botanical stock photography? Click here

All photographs and digital images are ©Cheryl Ann Meola. All Rights Reserved. All photographs and digital images displayed in this newsletter are for viewing purposes only and cannot be duplicated or copied.

https://www.shutterstock.com/g/Cheryl+Ann+Meola

Cheryl Ann Meola photos, images, assets | Adobe Stock

©Cheryl Ann Meola

March Gardening Tasks 2024

 In March the weather teases gardeners into believing spring is almost around the corner, with lots of continuous sunny and warm days. During this time of year, the weather is very unpredictable for planning and the weather is like a roller coaster, one day it’s nice and sunny, then the next day it’s cold and rainy.  As gardeners we get antsy, we want to get out in our garden and play in the dirt. But we know better, the last average frost date is still a month or two months away, depending on your gardening zone. This is when we can start planning for this year’s spring garden. Spring is a good time to check out new gardening books. There are two gardening books I would like to recommend Southeast Style Gardening and Gardening for the Butterflies and the books are on sale on Amazon. Here are the links: Southeast Style Gardening and Gardening for the Butterflies. The books can help you plan your garden for spring.

March Gardening Chores

As we patiently wait for spring to arrive, we can start preparing by starting seeds. Start spring flowers and vegetables from seeds indoors. It takes about 6 weeks to get strong seedlings. To make starting seeds easier several horticultural companies have designed and marketed seed germination kits. The kits can be bought at local nurseries, Home Depot, Lowe’s, and online. There is a kit that includes 2 grow lights, seedling heat mat, growing tray, base tray for excess water, 2 vents on the cover, garden tools, and plant labels. This kit is just one that was listed on Amazon that I found.

Spring is a good time to prune your shrubs and vines. Just be aware that some plants bloom on new growth where as other plants bloom on old growth. When in doubt prune after flowering.

March is the last month recommended to prune Roses to half their original size. After pruning rake up last year’s mulch and replace with new mulch. This should be done especially if your roses had black spot because the black spot spores are laying dormant on top of last year’s mulch. Fertilize with Bayer Advanced Rose Fertilizer after pruning and apply once a month. Click Here For More Information on Roses.

Prune back Holly shrubs that have gotten too large. If needed, you can prune back to 36 inches, but if the holly shrubs are 10 to 15 feet you can do the pruning in stages until you find the height that you like.

Flowering shrubs such as Winter Honeysuckle, Quince, and Forsythia can be pruned after flowering.

Is your Liriope looking at little tattered? The leaves can be cut either with a weed eater or your lawn mower set on its highest setting.

Trim back deciduous grasses before the grass breaks dormancy.

Add fresh layer of mulch on all trees and shrubs to prevent weeds. To prevent future weeds from growing add pre-emergent weed preventer on top of the mulch. Check the label to see how often you need to re-apply for continuous protection.

Fertilize winter flowering annuals with a blooming type fertilizer. Water in all granular type fertilizers.

Lawns should have lime at least yearly. Have you limed your lawn lately? Use 40 pounds per 1000 square feet.

Fertilize Pecan Trees with a fruit tree fertilizer and water in well after.

Fertilize shrubs with a shrub and tree fertilizer and water in well.

Need to divide your perennials? When the leaves start to show you can divide and plant elsewhere in your garden. Use a mixture of SuperThrive and Recharge, professional strength microbial superpack as a root stimulator for best results after planting.

One of the best times to plant fruit and nut trees is in early spring. Nurseries have a good selection of these trees in spring, but hurry the selection usually goes fast.

Peach and Apple trees need to be sprayed with a fungicide recommended for fruit trees, and spray the trees while the blossoms are on the tree.

Check for scale insects on Camellias and Euonymus. Spray with a horticultural oil, if you detect the insects.

All photographs maybe purchased as fine art prints at HibiscusandMore.com  

Cheryl Ann Meola Art

Butterfly Gardening

Houseplants - Grow Fresh Air

Need floral stock photography? Click here.

https://www.shutterstock.com/g/Cheryl+Ann+Meola

https://stock.adobe.com/contributor/210785031/Cheryl

All photographs and digital images are ©Cheryl Ann Meola. All Rights Reserved. All photographs and digital images displayed in this newsletter are for viewing purposes only and cannot be duplicated or copied.

January Gardening Calendar 2024

January Gardening Calendar

Basil

Start planning for Spring. January is the perfect month to start planning your garden for the current year. As a refresher for last year’s thoughts, ideas or plants you were thinking about purchasing, dust off your gardening journal to see what changes or additions you wanted to make this year. A garden is always evolving.

Start looking at seed and garden catalogs. January is a good time to start planning this year’s design features and plants. Seeds and new introduction plants sell out quickly. Don’t miss out and wait, try to order your seeds or reserve your plants soon. Reserving your plant purchase guarantees the plant will ship at the proper time for planting in your USDA zone.

Seed starting Kits. Growers recommend starting the seeds indoors in a bright location to get a jump start to spring. There are seed starting kits which are advertised as seed starter germination kit or seed starter greenhouse kit. The kits usually feature a tray, growing media disks, and a cover for the tray. The kits are an excellent choice to start growing your seeds before spring. Some kits even include a warming matt to get a faster germination rate. 

Bare Root Roses will be arriving soon at local garden centers. Prepare planting beds by digging an area 3 feet wide by 12 inches deep for each rose. Soak bare root roses in a mixture of SuperThrive and water for 24 to 48 hours before planting. Local nurseries will also have available roses in peat pots. These pots are biodegradable and can be planted. Don’t take the plant out of the peat pot. Before planting cut the pot halfway down and around the pot four times. This action helps the peat pot degrade faster. For more information on Rose Care Click Here.

Poinsettias water only when the soil is dry to the touch. Start fertilizing in March. Poinsettias need bright light and cool temperatures even indoors.

Deciduous Trees and Shrubs the structure of the trees and shrubs can be easily seen this time of year. Prune all branches that rub or cross each other. Trees and shrubs can be planted now. Plan to plant on a warm day when the ground is not frozen. When the weather warms for a week or longer, and then the temperatures drop into the twenties, cover Camellias and Gardenias nightly until the temperatures are above freezing. The last week in January prune Pear and Apple trees, and Grape vines.

Vegetable Garden till the soil, if the ground is dry. This preventative measure helps to eliminate weeds, insects, and nematodes. Don’t have room for a vegetable garden, but would like to grow your own vegetables? All vegetables can be grown in large planters. The recommended size for vegetables is 16 inches or larger. In fact, that is how I grow my vegetables each season. For more information on Spring Vegetable Gardening Click Here.

Prune Pampas Grass and all other ornamental grasses down to about 12 inches. Prune Lantana and Cannas to about 2 to 3 inches. Shape Crepe Myrtles and Altheas and remove old seed heads.

Annuals water winter annuals like pansies, violas, ornamental cabbage and kale, after a hard freeze. This helps to rehydrate the annuals faster. Water outside container plants before a hard freeze, too.

Houseplants check for insects. Insects like mealy bugs, scale, spider mites are more likely to infest your plants during the winter months. Spray with a horticultural oil or insecticidal soap, and make sure you spray underneath the leaves. Turn your houseplants a quarter to half turn once a week. This prevents leaning of your houseplants. I turn mine once a week when I water my houseplants.

Need more gardening advice? Follow our BlogSpot for current sales, daily specials, and sound gardening advice. Simply click on Join This Site Link under Followers. Sign Up Is Free. View Current Blog Post Click Here.

All photographs maybe purchased as fine art prints at HibiscusandMore.com  

Cheryl Ann Meola Art

Butterfly Gardening

Houseplants - Grow Fresh Air

Need floral stock photography? Click here.

https://www.shutterstock.com/g/Cheryl+Ann+Meola

https://stock.adobe.com/contributor/210785031/Cheryl

All photographs and digital images are ©Cheryl Ann Meola. All Rights Reserved. All photographs and digital images displayed in this newsletter are for viewing purposes only and cannot be duplicated or copied.

©Cheryl Ann Meola

 

Photo Contest

 Hello Bloggers,

I'm a horticulturist and plant photographer. I have entered a photo contest. I need a hundred votes for each photo. Just click on the link and vote. Happy Gardening!!

Meow. Is anybody there?

Louisiana Sunset

Sunflower

Thank you

Adobe Stock Images by Cheryl Ann Meola Photography

Looking for that special royalty-free image for the article or book you are writing? Cheryl Ann Meola has several botanical images that you need. Cheryl specializes in tropical and southern plants. Her portfolio will not disappoint. New floral and fruit images uploaded today. Check it out at: Adobe Stock by Cheryl

Here's a few examples of images to view and purchase at the link above.

Cheryl Ann Meola Photography

Cheryl Ann would like to introduce to you a website featuring beautiful Botanical prints and Travel prints.

The photographs are featured in: Wall Art, Home Decor, LifeStyle, Stationary, Tech, and Apparel.

My artwork has a section for everyone. Here are some examples of my work:

Visit Cheryl Ann Meola Photography

To Purchase.

Apparel visit https://cherylann-meola.pixels.com/

Enjoy

                              

 

Tropical Botanicals and Nature Photography Stock Photos

 

Are you acquainted with someone in Publishing, Newspapers, Magazines or Textbooks industries? Does that acquaintance need or is searching for the perfect photo to illustrate the article or book? Let me introduce a stock botanical photographer that specializes in tropical botanicals and Nature photography. Each image has the current botanical, scientific, and common names. Cheryl just added new images to her stock photography portfolio. The new images are Mosquito Plant, American Lotus, Alocasia, False Aralia, Azalea, Caladium, Swamp Leather Fern, Variegated Tapioca Plant, and Buccaneer Palm. The images are royalty-free images. Here is a Link to few the new images: Cheryl Ann Meola Photography

Several changes in scientific names are the result of studies by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group, (APG). The changes in scientific names are the result of two decades of research by a new generation of taxonomists applying DNA datasets or the testing of the plant’s DNA and modern phylogenetic theory. DNA datasets did not exist twenty years ago.

Here is the link: Cheryl Ann Meola Photography Stock Photography

 

All Images are copyrighted Cheryl Ann Meola 2021.

Tropical Botanicals and Nature Photography Stock Photos

 

Are you acquainted to someone in Publishing, Newspapers, Magazines or Textbooks? Does that acquaintance need or is searching for the perfect photo to illustrate the article or book? Let me introduce a stock botanical photographer that specializes in tropical botanicals and Nature photography. Each image has the current botanical, scientific, and common names.

Several changes in scientific names are the result of studies by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group, (APG). The changes in scientific names are the result of two decades of research by a new generation of taxonomists applying DNA datasets or the testing of the plant’s DNA and modern phylogenetic theory. DNA datasets did not exist twenty years ago.

Here is the link: Tropical Stock Photography