• If you love blueberry muffins, plant blueberry bushes now.
• Keep those Valentine cut flower arrangements fresh longer with a simple solution of 50-50 lemon lime soda and water and a dash of bleach. Also, before you put your flowers in your vase remove all of the lower leaves.
• Get out your pruners! Cut back hybrid tea and repeat blooming roses before the buds break. Wait to prune one time blooming roses until after they have bloomed. Crape myrtles and butterfly bush should also be pruned in late winter/early spring.
• Prune early spring flowering shrubs such as forsythia, quince, winter honeysuckle and winter jasmine immediately after the flowers fade.
• Sweeten acidic soil with wood ashes for plants that prefer a soil pH of 7 or above.
• If you haven’t done so already, remove dead fronds from your asparagus plants.
• Get a jump start on spring. Check your seed packets to find out how long it takes the different varieties to sprout. Mark the last frost date for your area on the calendar and count back the number of weeks needed for sprouting. This is the date you should sow your seeds indoors.
• While a gentle rinse helps clean the dust off of most houseplants, not so for African violets and other plants with soft fuzzy leaves. To spruce up these plants, use a soft brush, such as a paintbrush or baby’s hairbrush to gently stroke dirt off the tops and bottoms of the leaves.

“It’s the season. People are going to want to plant,” said Jayla Fry, AgriLife Extension Master Gardener program assistant in College Station. “ By all means, go for it.  During a drought, the use of drip irrigation and mulch can help sustain landscapes.  “But at the same time you have to realize that during times of a major drought like this, you’re going to have to add the water,” she said. “So it’s an expense that one has to weigh out when adding to the landscape.”

Fry said existing plants – from flowers to shrubs to trees – also need special care during the drought to stay healthy and last until rain returns.  “A couple of things to consider in a drought are lawns and trees,” Fry said. “With lawns of course, they need to be protected with supplemental irrigation. So about once a week you’re going to want to add about an inch of water. Bermuda grass is a little more drought tolerant than St. Augustine, so it is more forgiving.”

Trees are a higher investment for property owners and should be watered during a drought to keep them from dying.  “You’re going to want to protect trees and how you do that is with your water hose,” she said.  Fry suggested that a water hose be turned on until it produces a pencil-sized flow. Place the running hose at the drip-line, or the edge of its canopy, and move the water around the tree every 15 minutes until the ground is completely soaked.  “You need to do this every two weeks, even when the rains come again,” she said. “The trees will need the extra water to recoup from this prolonged drought.”

For flower beds, Fry said, the soil is an indicator of whether water is needed.  “If it is cool to the touch, then you’re OK,” she said. “But especially with the wind and the drought conditions, you’re going to want to supplement with irrigation. Shrubs will need between the amount of water that you add to your lawn and the amount that you add to your trees.”

Adding mulch, she noted, will maintain soil moisture and reduce soil temperatures, which helps plants survive a drought.
“And of course, by adding mulch you get the benefit of cutting down on weeds in your flower bed. So mulch can be a great help during drought periods,” Fry noted.

http://agrilife.org/today/2011/05/09/landscape-drought-tips/

August begins fall planting season and many vegetable varieties can be planted this month. Plant seed for bush snap beans, bush lima beans, beets, cucumbers, collards, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, cabbage, Chinese cabbage, head lettuce, summer squash, southern peas, mustard and green shallot sets. Plant Irish potatoes and transplant basil, broccoli, and Brussels sprout plants late this month.

• Cutting spent flowers encourages more flowers. If your annuals and perennials are not looking their best, lightly prune these plants because once the temperature moderates many of these plants will grow and flower again.

• It is not too late to set out another planting of many warm-season annuals such as marigolds, zinnias, and periwinkles. They will require extra attention for the first few weeks but will provide color until the first frost.
• If you have not lightly pruned your roses, do this now. This light pruning stimulates more flowers for the fall season. Keep removing spent flowers to promote more flowers.
• Annuals require plenty of water at this time of year to remain good looking until the temperature moderates and the plants start growing again.
• Do not allow plants with nuts, fruit or berries to suffer from lack of moisture. Pecans, black walnuts, persimmons, pomegranates, and berries will frequently drop under drought conditions. Use water and mulch to keep the fruit on the plants.
• Prune dead or diseased wood from trees and shrubs. Hold off on major pruning from now until mid-winter. Severe pruning now will only stimulate tender new growth prior to frost.
• Sow seeds of fall and winter annuals like snapdragons, dianthus, pansies, calendulas, and others indoors under lights or outdoors in a protected location for planting outside in mid- to late fall.
• Plant acid scarified bluebonnet seeds and other wildflower seeds in August. Bluebonnet and some other wildflowers germinate in late summer or early fall to develop a good root system. The cold of winter prepares the plant to grow and bloom in the spring
• As bulb catalogs arrive, make your selections and place your orders for spring flowering bulbs to arrive in time for planting in November and December. Hybrid tulips are treated like annuals in this area because the summer temperature usually roots the blubs. There are a few tulips native to Turkey that grow as perennials in this area. Tulipa bakeri, Tulipa clusiana and Tulipa batalini are a few. Many bulb catalogs carry these tulips.

Source: Texas AgriLife Research & Extension Urban Solutions Center

• WATER, WATER, WATER!
• MULCH, MULCH, MULCH!
• Don’t neglect the veggies you’ve planted.
• Prune plants to maintain size and control odd shape growth.
• Plant crape myrtles while in bloom from nursery stock.  They would rather be in the ground than in containers-keep them well watered.
• Plant lawn grass sod.  It should look fresh and recently dug.  It will need water twice a day.
• Deadhead all blooming plants and fertilize sparingly.  Clean up container plantings by removing dead leaves and flowers.
• Pinch off flowers, including herbs that are going to seed to encourage re-blooming and additional foliage.
• Keep berried plants well hydrated.
• On a hot afternoon, wilting is a sign of stress.  It may be from lack of moisture or that a plant cannot take up available moisture in the soil through its roots.  Wait until morning.  If the plant is still wilting, it needs water.