Country Life Making the most of summer in the garden

soms and buds, and unchecked, they can cause these plants to stop blooming altogether.

To kill these hungry caterpillars in check and keep your plants blooming, spray every three to four weeks with Captain Jack’s Deadbug Brew. For best results, apply in the evening toward dusk, since the insecticide breaks down in bright sunlight and since budworms typically feed at night.

LYNDEN — To borrow the words of a late, dear friend of mine, this time of year o ers an “embarrassment of riches” in the garden. From hydrangeas to zinnias, roses to dahlias, and a huge array of summer-blooming annuals, there’s certainly no shortage of color to enjoy this time of year.

Vegetable gardens are beginning to yield their abundance as well, and who can resist the mouth-watering taste of freshpicked berries? We’re blessed to live in a corner of the world that o ers such a perfect climate for gardening, but as we near midsummer, it’s important to keep our focus to ensure the beauty and bounty continue into autumn. Here are a few tips to keep summer going strong in your garden.

First, July is when we start to see several garden pests begin to show up, so take the time to regularly look for insect damage. Like clockwork, budworms have begun their feasting on petunia, calibrachoa, and geranium blos- ird, assess the shrubs and perennials in your garden. If many of your plants are spring bloomers and you want to add color for summer, one of my must-have perennials is echi-

Another insect that’s still relatively rare but becoming more common is cottony scale, a u y white insect about a quarter inch long that commonly attacks hydrangeas, maples, and occasionally dogwoods. ese sucking insects often attach themselves to the underside of a leaf, sucking the sap from plants and secreting a waste product called honeydew which can lead to mold on plant leaves. If you spot these bugs on your plants, I recommend treating them systemically with Bonide Annual Tree & Shrub Insect Control, which can be mixed with water and applied to the soil around the base of the plant.

Second, make the most of your vegetable garden by harvesting your crops regularly. Fruiting plants like peas, beans, cucumbers and tomatoes will bear more fruit if you pick regularly and avoid letting any of the fruits grow too large. To encourage more owers and thus more fresh produce, you can also feed your vegetables occasionally with a blossom booster fertilizer. Be sure to water your plants deeply and in early morning if possible, using a soaker hose to keep water o plants’ foliage.

Sombrero Lemon Yellow echinacea is one of David Vos’s must-have perennials for summer color in the yard. According to Vos, this variety of coneflower stays compact, has strong stems, and blooms profusely from July through September. (Photo courtesy David Vos) nacea, commonly called coneower. Perfect for sunny gardens, echinacea comes in a wide range of colors, including shades of red, orange, yellow, pink, white, and more. Rarely attacked by bugs, echinacea is easy to grow and will provide owers from early July through September — much longer than many other perennials.

My go-to varieties are in the Sombrero series; these varieties withstand our wet winters very well and are naturally compact with very sturdy stems. Add echinacea to your garden to attract pollinators and leave the dried owers over winter to feed the birds.

Finally, if your yard could use another summer bloomer, hydrangeas are hard to beat—and with so many new and improved varieties coming out in the last few years, it’s hard to pick a favorite. Limelight Prime improves on the classic Limelight variety with stronger stems, a more compact habit, and more vivid colors, and Fire Light continues to be one of my favorites with pure white owers that age to a rich pomegranate pink.

If you like the look of more traditional mophead or lacecap varieties, look for rebloomers that continue to put out owers throughout summer — Rhythmic Blue, Tilt-a-Swirl, and Tu Stu all o er fresh owers until autumn.

As anyone from other hotter, more humid parts of the country will tell you, it’s hard to beat summer in the Paci c Northwest. Make the most of it this month and enjoy the long days outside. e beauty that nature has to offer here truly amounts to an embarrassment of riches.

-- David Vos is manager of Vander Giessen Nursery Inc. of Lynden.