Time to Wash House Plants
House plants benefit from a summer vacation, too. Put them outside in a spot that is shady from at least 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; most will suffer a severe sunburn if given too much sun too quickly. Wash the leaves, and prune where necessary. Flush salts out of the soil and fertilize. Also, examine the plants for any signs of scale, mealybugs or mites. Spray palms and philodendrons with diluted Volk oil, which not only gets rid of pests but also leaves the leaves with a nice shine. Follow instructions carefully for palms. House plants are ready to go back inside in the fall.
Cymbidiums need to be protected from strong sunlight during the late summer months. However, given too much shade, they will develop rich, dark foliage at the expense of bloom. Filtered shade is ideal. Fertilize them now with a higher nitrogen fertilizer; then, every month until December give them a low nitrogen fertilizer. Keep cymbidiums on the moist side this time of year, while they are growing.
Bedding begonias with brownish leaves can be grown in full sun. Dwarfs such as ‘Gin,’ with pink flowers, ‘Whiskey,’ with white flowers, and ‘Vodka,’ with red flowers, do especially well. Taller varieties are also available.
Transvaal daisies, Gerbera , are not as hard to grow as their reputation makes it seem. However, they are easily lost when dirt gets into the crown of leaves, causing the center to rot. Transvaal daisies’ thick roots require a loose soil. Plant them high in the ground, being very careful not to mound soil around the tall flower stems. The plants respond well to a fertilizer such as liquid fish.
Chlorosis causes the leaves of plants, most often gardenias, azaleas and citrus, to turn yellow between green veins. In severe cases, the whole leaf turns yellow and the tips burn. An iron deficiency, chlorosis occurs when a lack of acidity in the soil chemically locks up the available iron. The quickest cure is iron chelate, which can be sprayed on the foliage.
Freesias, South African bulbs that are very well-adapted to Southern California, become available this month. Plant some now, and then in six to eight weeks plant more for an extended blooming period. At one time, the Dutch, who were doing most of the hybridizing, were concentrating on size. Now the trend seems to be to bring forth the fragrance. If planted with a ground cover of Iberis , candytuft, the top-heavy freesias won’t fall into the mud when it rains. Dutch iris can also be planted now.
Azaleas will start to form buds next month, so any pruning or thinning should be done now. Fertilize with a camellia-azalea or an acid fertilizer. If you are planting azaleas, place them high in the ground and then mulch. Azaleas do best if their roots get air, and so will have trouble in heavy soil.
The fruit of pomelo trees, which resembles a huge grapefruit but slightly pear-shaped, is eaten the same way an orange is. Its flavor ranges from mildly tart to quite sweet, depending on variety and growing conditions. Pomelo trees do best in the warmer inland valleys; ‘Chandler’ and ‘Reinking’ are good varieties.
Although kumquats, limequats and orangequats usually are grown as ornamental trees, all three do bear useful fruit. The small kumquat fruit can be eaten whole, rind and all, or used in preserves. The limequat produces tiny yellow fruit with a lime flavor. The orangequat produces acid, juicy fruit that is slightly larger than a kumquat. The trees of the three varieties are naturally small, and when grown on semi-dwarf rootstock will be quite shrub-like, making them good candidates for large containers.
Winter squashes, such as ‘Acorn,’ ‘Butternut,’ ‘Hubbard’ and ‘Buttercup,’ are ready for harvest when the rind turns hard; test for maturity by trying to puncture the rind with your thumbnail. If you can’t, the squash is ready to pick. After harvest, the squash can be stored in a cool, dry area for as many as six months.
Prune raspberries this month. After the fruit has been picked, the canes that produced fruit this year will die. Cut the old canes off near ground level; that will promote new canes for next year’s crop.
Green onions grown from onion sets are easy to grow. Anywhere you have spare garden space, plant sets one-inch deep in moist soil, water weekly, and forget about them. In about six weeks they will be ready.
