Annual Flower Care in Late Summer

Annual flower gardens may be looking a little weary this time of year. It's time for a prune, a feed, and a good watering.

By Charlie Nardozzi

It's getting into late summer and some of our annual gardens are looking a little weary. Annual flowers are bred to bloom all summer long, but they sometimes need help continuing the nonstop flower show. With the dry, hot conditions this summer in my neck of the woods, some annual flowers have given up for the season.

But if your gardens filled with petunias, celosia, zinnias, cosmos, salvia, and many other annual flowers are still growing but just not looking their best, you can revive them for a final run into fall.

 

Here are some tips for late-summer care for your annual flowers:

Deadhead

While most new varieties of annual flowers are self-cleaning, meaning they automatically drop their flowers once the blooms have wilted, many others can benefit from a good deadheading. If you haven't been keeping up with deadheading all summer, now is the time to cut back your old flowers. Not only does deadheading make the plants look more attractive, but for older varieties it removes the developing seedpods, so the annual plant thinks its job isn't done and keeps sending out more flowers.

 

Cut Back

Cutting back works in conjunction with deadheading and, in fact, you can do both at the same time. Trailling annuals such as calibrachoa and petunias will sometimes get leggy and unattractive this time of year. Cut these back to just above a healthy side branch or bud. The result will be a bushier plant that will start flowering for you again.

 

Add Fertilizer

Modern annual flowers are bred to sprint into flowering and stay that way all season. However, they need food to bloom. Consider sidedressing your annual flower beds with fertilizer now. Choose a balanced organic fertilizer or a soluble fertilizer, such as fish emulsion, to stimulate new growth.

 

Add Mulch

Replenish the mulch around your annual flower beds, especially if you live in a hot-summer area where the mulch breaks down quickly. Keep plants well watered and mulched to keep the soil cool and moist.