If the heat has not yet slowed down your joy of gardening, I must tell you to stop planting. Shrubs and trees planted now will require an excessive amount of water to get established over the next few months, so it’s better to wait until the cooler weather of fall sets in. June is a great month to fertilize your planter beds again with a balanced 15-15-15 fertilizer, however, if you have California natives or low water use Mediterranean plants, skip fertilizing them. This is traditionally their dormant period, and they don’t need the extra nutrients. Keeping them watered once or twice per week may keep them from going completely dormant, but be easy, they don’t like “wet feet,” and you planted them to save water anyhow. June is a great month to sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labor. Have a glass of lemonade. What’s that? You have ants bothering you now? This is typical as they search for water and food. The use of bait stations is far more effective than sprays. The baits are carried back to the nest where it kills the queen and her offspring, effectively ending the life cycle of the colony. Now that we are deep into summer, we need to be irrigating our turf 7 -9 start times a week; now through September. We are still running it 7 minutes per run time, 4-5 days per week. But with the temperatures soaring, we may have to run it twice on some of the watering days. This is called cycle and soak. We water for 7 minutes, wait an hour and run an additional 7.
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