The Fourth of July is around the corner. Create an Independence Day planter in red, white, and blue! For reds: try verbena, petunia, Sweet William, or salvia. For blues: Bachelor's button, salvia, petunia, or lobelia. For whites: alyssum, petunia, candytuft.

Now...on to the July tasks in your gardens!

Planting
You can still plant some annuals and perennials in your summer gardens. For annuals, try marigolds, portulaca, and zinnias for that huge splash of color. For perennials, and even more color, plant coreopsis, gaura, rudbeckias ('Irish Eyes', etc.), salvias, and many more.

Tropical plants are popular now and can be brought into any garden, whether tropical, cottage, or country themes. Flowering shrubs include hibiscus, brugmansia (Angel's Trumpet), canna, bougainvillea, and vines such as passion flower or Burmese honeysuckle. Large-leaf evergreens include philodendrons, xanadu, tree ferns, and gingers. You can even include abutilon, which comes in several colors including red, yellow, orange, and pink.

Harvesting
You are probably busy harvesting and enjoying your summer vegetables like green beans, tomatoes, eggplant, squashes, and peppers. You can also continue to plant these veggies to extend your crop harvest.

Maintenance
We all have been experiencing a major "pest" time in our gardens. Those holes in your rose leaves are from the rose slug. Aphids love the rose buds, and more. You can wash off these pests with water. Caterpillars are abundant; try a spray containing Bt. And we can't forget snails--they won't let us.

It's feeding time for your flowerbeds, roses, vegetables, citrus and warm-season lawns. Come in and ask one of us what fertilizers will be best for each of your plant needs. We offer a wide selection of fertilizers: multipurpose, organic, and slow release.

You can do some pruning, even though it's summertime. Fuchsia 'Gartenmeister,' gaura, and salvias will look much better if cut back by about 1/3. Oh...and your catmint, too.

If you forgot to increase your watering from the spring months, you must do so now. Trees (non-citrus) and shrubs will need deep soaks once each month in the summer, and regular irrigation in between. Citrus and your flowerbeds need regular weekly watering.

Those of you growing tomatoes and peppers, watch for tomato hornworms. They will need to be hand-picked from your foliage.

As usual, mulch, mulch, mulch! We will always tell you to mulch. This does not mean mound up the mulch to 5 feet. It means continue to replenish the mulch and maintain a 2-4 inch blanket over your soil. So when you hear us singing the MULCH song, you know just what we mean!

And last, but not least, have a very Happy Independence Day!

Shade is inevitable in gardens. It is a blessing and a burden; while few plants flourish in the shade, the ones which do flourish are very pretty.

As a garden matures, trees get larger than was planned, shrubs soar and become treelike themselves, and soon there is very little sun to garden in. Many of these problems can be avoided if trees are planted so their shadows fall on paved areas or the roof of the house. Trees and shrubs can be pruned to let more light through, and some that were planted too close together should be removed, but full-grown trees and shrubs cannot be replaced quickly, so what you can do with the existing shade should be carefully thought out.

There are varying degrees of shade. Deep shade is the most difficult problem. Only a handful of plants will grow in dark shade, and even they would prefer more light. Deep shade is usually caused by dense trees that keep branches close to the ground. Again, thinning is one way of allowing more light, but sometimes it helps to simply cut off the lower branches so more light slips through. Deep shade is also a logical place for a patio or other paved area, which sidesteps the problem of what to plant.

Light shade is much easier to deal with. "Light" means that some sunlight filters through whatever is directly above, or that if nothing is directly overhead but a plant grows in the shadow of something (as on the north side of a house), there is indirect light coming from the open sky above. Many more plants will grow in this kind of shade, and a few, famous for their flowers, actually require it.

For spring and summer planting, here are some great bedding plants for shade gardens. Like most shade plants, these need light but not direct sun (don't count on them in dark entries, for instance.) All are bread-and-butter nursery items or at least easy to grow from seed. Not all are annuals, but they're treated that way and replanted each year.

Bedding begonia: Newer kinds are unsurpassed for masses of neat white flowers. Near the coast they are almost never out of bloom and can be counted on for color in the the fall and even into the winter. Like impatiens, they are best replanted each spring.

Coleus: Since they are grown for their multicolored leaves, pinch back tips to force more branching and cut off flowers to prolong the life of the plant. Most kinds grow two to three feet tall.

Impatiens: In the last few years, exciting things have been happening to impatiens. Flowers are bigger and colors brighter on plants that are denser and more compact. Impatiens will last through the winter, but are best planted anew each spring. One of the best shade plants, New Guinea impatiens are a little different. Grown for fanciful foliage, they do best with a half-day of sun in the morning, light shade in the afternoon. They'll last several years in pots.

Monkey flower: Sold as Mimulus tigrinus, but actually a cross between a Chilean monkey flower and a streamside California species, this has bright yellow flowers spotted with brown along foot-tall stems. It likes shade and moisture.

Wishbone flower: (Torenia fournieri). A bushy little foot-tall plant with purplish-blue pea-shaped flowers. Occasionally found at nurseries, or grown easily from seed.

The Japanese beetle was first discovered in the United States in Riverton, New Jersey, in 1916. It spread rapidly in the United States and has now become a pest in more than 20 states. More than 400 plant species are susceptible to attack by this pest.

The Japanese beetle is brilliantly colored, oval, and less than half an inch long. Wing colors are coppery, and the body is a beautiful metallic green. The adults feed in the daytime from early June to Labor Day. They devour leaves as well as flowers on many ornamental plants, shrubs, vines and trees. The leaf tissue is eaten between the veins so that the foliage looks somewhat like lace. Beetle grubs feed on plant roots, attacking mainly lawn turf but also damaging the roots of many other crop and ornamental plants.

When populations of adult beetles are too high to pick by hand or when damage to desirable plants in your landscaping is noticeable, you should treat the plants to bring the population down to a manageable level with an insect spray.

Treating ornamental plants will also help reduce the numbers of eggs being deposited in the soil close to or under your lawn, but it is not a substitute for controlling Japanese beetle white grub infestations as a stand-alone pest control method. For that, we recommend a yearly application of a time-release insect control product, which will both control and help prevent damaging infestations in grasses.

The pesky little insect has ruined countless hikes, BBQ's and campouts. This vector has literally killed millions of people throughout history, and still affects millions around the world today. As daunting as this sounds, there are steps you can take to co-exist and stay healthy.

What attracts the mosquito? After 30 million years of evolution, the mosquito has perfected its hunting skills. The mosquito uses three sensors to attract its prey:

• Chemical sensors: Mosquitoes sense carbon dioxide and lactic acid up to 100 feet away. Unfortunately, we give off these gases as part of our normal breathing.
• Visual sensors: Clothing that contrasts with the background enables the mosquito to "zero in" on you.
• Heat sensors: Mosquitoes detect heat, so they can find warm-blooded mammals very easily.

The best thing you can do to control mosquitoes is to use a mosquito repellant with deet and eliminate standing water around your home. A mosquito can lay up to 250 eggs at one time in still water, and they can hatch as fast as 7 days. Check your gutters frequently for collected water (especially if they sag and aren't level), along with birdbaths, buckets or boggy areas of the garden.

Burning citronella candles, using an electronic bug zapper, or spraying surfaces near entertainment areas with a mosquito barrier spray will also help kill and repel mosquitoes. We also highly recommend using Mosquito Dunks if you have areas of standing water that you can't drain.

The West Nile Virus was first introduced in the U.S. in 1999. It has since spread to almost every state, with over 3,000 cases in 2006. Diligence is your best protection. Stay indoors at dawn and dusk hours, wear pants and long-sleeves shirts if possible, avoid any standing water, and repair broken screens.

Although it can be a constant battle, by incorporating the use of insect repellents and breeding prevention (eliminating standing water), mosquitoes and the diseases they carry can be reduced, making the outdoors more accessible and enjoyable for everyone.

Hummingbird gardens must offer not only the nectar-filled flowers but also must be a habitat that supports their lifestyle. These little birds need both sun and shade, shrubs and tree branches for perching, fresh water for not only drinking but for bathing too. Oh yes, and they will need materials for nest making such as spider webs, dryer lint, or bits of leaves.

These delicate birds spend lots of energy flying, so it comes as no surprise that they feed many times each hour (3-5 times). While our flowers are blooming, there is nectar for them to sip, but once you have offered them a flower food source, you can also place hummingbird feeders in prominent locations to feed them too. Hummingbird feeders supplement the flower nectar, especially when flowers are few. Hang them from tree branches or a carefully placed Shepherds hook, high enough to keep the hummingbird safe from the neighborhood cats.

If you decide to have a few hummingbird feeders, use our prepackaged Hummingbird nectar or a water (4 parts):sugar (1 part) mixture for the nectar (no food coloring please!). Clean the feeders every week, as molds can grow in the sugar water. Most feeders are red with some yellow too, just a couple of the hummer’s favorite colors!

We mentioned having a water source for the hummingbirds. They love quiet moving water, such as a bubbling fountain. Like the songbirds that will frequent this fountain of water, so will the hummer come and perch for a bath or drink. This is an absolutely delightful sight to see!

Hummingbirds love tubular shaped flowers although that shape is not absolutely required. Fragrance is not important to them, but vivid colors of red, purple, pink, orange and yellow will attract them to your garden. We have a large selection of flowering annuals and perennials that will attract hummingbirds into your gardens.

Pick a location in your landscape for the hummingbird garden. Maybe it will be a small garden or perhaps it will encompass all of your garden beds. Amend the soil with before planting. Feed your new hummingbird favorite plants with to keep those flowers coming!

Just a hummingbird safety note: Please be careful about your use of pesticides with the plants in your hummingbird garden. Just as care must be taken to save beneficial insects, the same is true of the hummingbirds (and other birds) that you have attracted. If they drink nectar with pesticide or eat an insect that has eaten or been sprayed with a pesticide, you will bring harm also to the hummingbird (and other birds in the garden).

We can’t wait to see you. We’ll meet you in our gardens. Below is a beginning list of flowering plants, but don’t hesitate to ask one of our salespeople for more help getting you started.

We carry: