So what should you plant now? Benjamin Carroll, Senior horticulturist at the Chicago Botanic Garden, came into our ABC7 studio with beautiful plants to give tips.
Benjamin's Tips:
- Fill in your garden this month with beautiful summer annuals, including petunia's, dusty miller, sweet potato vines, and bidens. If you would love a beautiful spring-blooming perennial, Bleeding Hearts are still available.
- Have you checked your impatiens for downy mildew? If your leaves appear to have a white, downy coating of spores on the undersides of their leaves, then the plants are diseased. Flowers and leaves will start dropping and the plant will die. Alternatives include new guinea impatiens and coleus.
- Wondering what to plant in your vegetable garden before it is too late? Basil and Tomato are still available. Plant the tomato's a little deeper at this time in the season.
- Summer is here!
Always check to see if your plants need watering.
If they are drooping and look to be dry or are dry to the touch, make sure to water in the morning.
Weave soaker hoses through vegetable gardens, and direct sprinklers to flowering gardens.
Be sure to water pots and containers.
On especially warm or windy days, pots and containers may need to be watered in the morning and the early evening.