Hello Friends, Neighbors, Fellow Gardeners,
It’s July and our Mill Creek Towne flowers are in full bloom, thanks to the hard work of Mill Creek Towne Garden Club gardeners! See the blooms at our Miller Fall, Shady Grove, and Roslyn entrances! Hope you continue to enjoy your summer and make sure you stay cool! Don’t forget to support our local farmers by visiting our local farmer’s markets and local farms! Make sure you have your gardens taken care of when you plan your summer trips. 🌞🌼 Here are some garden tips, educational opportunities, and videos for July. This includes some events from U.S. Botanic Garden, Master Gardeners of Montgomery County, and Maryland Gardens. A lot of gardening events are announced on Facebook as well as on our website. Some upcoming events include Ask a Master Gardener at Twinbrook Library, Brookside Garden’s Common Garden Pests & Diseases webinar (Sat, July 15), American Horticultural Society’s Great American Gardeners Webinar Series, Farm Tours, and more! These events will be hosted as online or live events.
Planning Tips
- Check out garden centers for discounted house plants.
- Take photos and update your garden journal.
- Inspect your garden hose for leaks an tighten all connections.
- As the heat and humidity move in, take it easy by working in the morning or early evening to avoid intense sun and humidity. Leave the big projects for this fall. For now, just concentrate on maintaining the beds you’ve already established and nurturing new plantings.
- Plan for 2023 with these Free resources: Landscaping with Native Plants by the Maryland Native Plant Society, Plant Invaders of Mid-Atlantic Natural Areas by the National Park Service, Master Gardeners of Northern Virginia Reading Room. Visit our Online Gardening Resources page for more helpful online resources.
- Buy a good gardening book or magazine subscription for a gift for your favorite gardener.
- Have a question about gardening? Check the University of Maryland Extension’s New Maryland Grows blog for garden tips.
Maryland Grows Blog
In weekly posts on MD HGIC’s blog, learn about pollinator conservation, growing native plants and food, and how to solve plant pest and disease problems.
In a Flash: How You Can Help Fireflies
Dr. Anahí Espindola from the University of Maryland Entomology Department offers ways you can support these special insects that light up the summer nights to the delight of children and adults alike. Read her post
MD HGIC Video Tips
Our Extension experts are sharing one-minute video tips to help you in the garden this summer. We’re talking about pest management in the vegetable garden, tree and lawn diseases, native plants, mowing lawns, and more!
For more information, please visit:
Master Gardener Plant Clinics
“Ask a Master Gardener” Plant Clinics are returning to several county locations in Maryland. Bring your plant and gardening questions and get answers from Master Gardeners trained by the University of Maryland Extension. Check out the details in your county: https://extension.umd.edu/programs/environment-natural-resources/program-areas/home-and-garden-information-center/master-gardener-program/local-programs
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What can Master Gardeners do for you?
- Help you select and care for annual and perennial plants, shrubs and trees.
- Determine if you need to test your soil.
- Provide you with information on lawn care.
- Identify weeds, beneficial and noxious insects, and plant diseases and remedies.
- Teach you how to use pesticides, mulch and compost.
- Guide you in pruning trees and shrubs.
- Provide you with options for managing wildlife.
- Provide you with gardening resources.
- Help you submit a plant sample for diagnosis
Plant Clinics are held at several sites in the county on a weekly basis and at special events such as garden festivals and the county fair. Regularly scheduled Plant Clinics are located at public libraries and farmers’ markets throughout the county as well as at the Audubon Naturalist Society in Chevy Chase. There are also clinics three days per week at Brookside Gardens. The busiest season is April through September, but some clinics are open year-round. Bring your plant samples and questions to one of these locations in Montgomery County, MD (see link below to find a location near you):
https://extension.umd.edu/mg/locations/plant-clinics
New Gardening Books
Online Gardening Resources
Online Garden-to-Table Recipes
There are many resources for recipes to make from your garden crops including seed companies, local farms, and online recipe cookbook catalogs. If you grow vegetables, these are very useful resources as the recipes feature the very plant you are growing. Here are few links to recipes you can make from your garden crops
Local Farms
#LocalIsTheNewNormal #BuyLocal
- Support Our Local Farmers – Join a CSA and have fresh local produce delivered to you!
- Visit a local farmers’ market.
How to Support Farmers and Safely Shop at Farmers’ Markets
Montgomery County MD Food and Beverage Guide
The 2023 MoCo Food & Beverage Guide is here! The Guide from the Montgomery County Food Council is available online – delicious baked goods, prepared foods, condiments and more. The craft beverage list grows each year and find two dozen local and amazing farms:
Download Montgomery County’s Office of Agriculture 2023 Farmers Market Flyer to find a farmer’s market near you.
Check out the revised list of Mid-Atlantic native plants for pollinators and beneficial insects, from the Xerces Society.
Flowers and Groundcovers
- Don’t fertilize plants that slow down in the heat, but keep them watered.
- Fertilize lightly plants that are blooming heavily.
- Cut back spent stalks on common daylilies.
- Divide and cut back bearded iris.
- Fill in bare spots in the garden with annuals.
- Check your container plants and keep them well-watered.
- Deadhead spent flowers to encourage reblooming.
- Cut a few flowers to enjoy in your workplace or home.
- Water transplants deeply when dry.
- Pinch out tips of leggy plants.
- Pinch buds of fall-blooming plants (mums).
- Stake tall plants.
- Spray roses with Neem oil every two weeks.
- Feed your roses and new plantings with slow-release fertilizer sparingly.
- Check for black spots on your roses – remove and discard any affected leaves in the trash, never back into your garden or in your compost – apply fungicide with Neem oil every two weeks during the growing season.
- Tie up clematis and other fast-growing climbing vines.
- Pests to watch for: Aphids, 4-lined plant bug, spidermites, whiteflies, Deer, slugs, snails.
- Diseases to watch for: Powdery mildew, Damping off of seedlings, Botrytis on peonies, Volutella blight on pachysandra.
- See UMD’s HGIC Garden Tips for more details.
- For a list of native plant resources, visit: https://extension.umd.edu/hgic/topics/native-plant-resources
THIS is the SUPERPOWER of YOUR KEYSTONE NATIVE PLANTS.
- No exotic plant could ever achieve this.
- Want butterflies? Feed the caterpillars with keystone plants!
- Exotic plants will never support as many different species of caterpillars as the Keystone Natives can.
- Find your keystone native plants here by zip code.
If your zip code doesn’t give you enough information try zip codes of the nearest larger town or city. LINK: https://www.nwf.org/NativePlantFinder/
Trees and Shrubs
- Prune foundation shrubs and trees to be no closer than 1 foot from the house.
- Contact a certified arborist to have your trees’ health inspected.
- Remove spent lilac and rhododendron blossoms.
- Fertilize your azaleas and rhododendrons and monitor them closely for any lacebug damage.
- Prune flowering shrubs as their flowers fade. Last chance to do so for fall-blooming camellias.
- Cover berry bushes and fruit trees with bird netting.
- Take soft cuttings of plants to propagate.
- Shape your evergreens and hedges.
- Check often and water newly planted trees if they don’t pass the finger test (stick your finger deep into soil – dry? Water!)
- If you must mulch, remove old mulch and then add 2″ – 3″ shredded pine or pine needles, keeping 3″ away from trunk.
- Remove Ivy, Pachysandra, and other vine-like groundcover from under shrubs.
- Soil test established trees that have not been performing well.
- Keep mowers and trimmers away from trunks!
- Mulch or compost healthy leaves.
- Soil test established trees that have not been performing well.
- Put diseased leaves, pesticide-laden grass clippings and weed seeds out for recycling rather than the compost pile.
- Spray with dormant oil to decrease pest infestations.
- Remove dead and dying trees.
- Pests to watch for: azalea lacebug, bagworms, borers, caterpillars, gypsy moths, Japanese bettles, scale, sawfly, spidermites, leafminers, voles, and deer.
- Diseases to watch for: Powdery mildew.
- For more tips, see UMD’s HGIC Garden Tips for more details.
Vegetable Planting Calendar
Download vegetable planting calendars from University of Maryland Extension, in English and Spanish. This page also has a link to a frost/freeze date calculator.
Squash vine borer larvae are feeding inside squash and pumpkin stems. Monitor plants for signs of wilting and entrance holes on lower stems. You may see sawdust-like frass around the hole.
https://extension.umd.edu/resource/squash-vine-borer-vegetables
Herbs, Veggies, and Fruit
- Remove finished plants.
- Plant/seed warm season plants.
- New fruit plants: keep watered their first spring, summer, and fall.
- Pick blueberries at a local pick-your-own farm or visit a local farmer’s market.
- Dig up garlic when tops turn brown. Let dry in sun, then store.
- Plant tender transplants: tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, okra, sweet potato.
- Sow seeds of: beets, beans, cucumbers, pumpkins, and squash for fall harvest.
- Sow heat-tolerant greens like Swiss Chard and mustard greens in part-shade.
- Keep all transplants watered deeply for 2-3 weeks.
- Put in supports for tomatoes and tall-blooming plants.
- Divide perennials and herbs. Pot up extras and give away at plant swaps.
- Thin seedlings.
- Harvest your herbs often and keep them trimmed back to encourage leafy growth.
- Apply dormant oil spray to fruit trees.
- Pests to watch for: Asparagus beetle, aphids, birds, cabbage worms, corn earworm, cutworms, deer, rabbits, and tomato hornworm.
- Diseases to watch for: Apple scab, Cedar-apple rust.
- Here are some more UMD’s HGIC Garden Tips.
Lawns
- Mow in the early evening.
- Sharpen your lawnmower blades.
- Calibrate your spreader before fertilizing.
- To control crabgrass, apply pre-emergent herbicide to lawn (when forsythia blooms drop).
- Mow high to reduce weeds and stress: Fescue & Bluegrass: 3″ – 3 1/2″, Zoysia: 2″
- Control wild onions in warm season turf with broadleaf weed control.
- Have soil tested (every 3 years minimum).
- Clean yard of all leaves and other debris.
- Turn your compost pile.
- The soil resources from the Natural Resources Conservation Service are available here:
- Diseases to watch for: brown patch, and red thread
- Pests to watch for: Grubs
- See UMD’s HGIC Garden Tips for more details.
Indoors/Houseplants
- Repot and fertilize houseplants when new growth begins.
- Change water in cuttings started last fall and add 2-3 pieces of fish tank charcoal.
- Do not over water house plants.
- Check on your container plants daily and keep them well-watered.
- Rotate houseplants to promote even growth.
- Remove old leaves, damaged stems.
- Pinch out growing tips of leggy cuttings and plants that are overwintering.
- Clean the leaves of your indoor houseplants to prevent dust and film build-up.
- Pests to watch for: aphids, spider mites, mealybug, scale, and whitefly.
- See UMD’s HGIC Garden Tips for more information.
Read and follow label instructions on all pesticides and herbicides.
Start the year off by minimizing your #risk to #pesticides and always #ReadTheLabel! Learn more here: http://npic.orst.edu/health/readlabel.html
Questions about your label? Call us! 800-858-7378 M-F 8am-12pm PST
Bagworm caterpillars are now very active. Look for little bags crawling around on evergreen trees and shrubs and be prepared to spray infested trees with the microbial insecticide, Bt by mid-July. Mature bagworms are not well controlled with Bt. They are best collected by hand and destroyed or sprayed with insecticides containing spinosad.
https://extension.umd.edu/resource/bagworms-trees-and-shrubs
5 Million Trees Initiative
Maryland’s goal is to plant and maintain 5 million native trees by 2031. There are various ways you can get involved – plant trees and register them — or volunteer! A number of tree-planting assistance programs are available at the municipal, county, and state levels.
Indoor/Outdoor Insect and Wildlife Tips
- Watch for insect and disease problems throughout your garden.
- Ticks are very active now.
- Check your plants at night with a flashlight for any night-feeding insects like slugs.
- Look out for slug eggs grouped under sticks and stones. They are the size of BBs and pale in color.
- This is the perfect time to apply grub control.
- Put out slug traps around your vulnerable edibles and hostas.
- Leave hummingbird feeders out until October 15th.
- Make hummingbird food by boiling two cups sugar in four cups of water.
- Put up birdhouses.
- Put suet out for birds.
- Keep bird feeders clean and filled.
- Change the water in your birdbath daily and throw the Mosquito Dunk (or bits) into any standing water.
- Switch your deer deterrent spray.
- Set out traps for mice, moles, and voles.
- Watch for: carpenter ants, flies, mosquitos, stink bugs, termites, rabbits, raccoons, groundhogs, deer, mice, moles, snakes, squirrels, and voles.
- For more information, see UMD’s HGIC Garden Tips.
Source: University of Maryland’s Home and Garden Information Center (HGIC) and the Washington Gardener.
See more tips from HGIC:
Support Our Local Farmers – Join a CSA and have fresh local produce delivered to you!
CSAs are seeing record numbers of subscribers http://ow.ly/eiQT50zD5lW – find your farmer here: http://ow.ly/jbO250zD56M
CSAs can take many forms, but essentially they are community supported farms in which members contribute to farming projects, usually by way of membership fees, in exchange for fresh, local produce. The concept came to the United States from Europe in the 1980s. They are a great way to take advantage of fresh, locally grown fruit, vegetables, herbs, and more while supporting nearby farms. Each one is different, some offer pickup locations in urban areas, some offer only farm-based pickups.
There are multiple CSAs located around the County offering a wide variety of products. CSAs begin taking sign-ups for spring and summer seasons in the early part of the year, and they tend to fill up FAST! Know of another CSA not on our list? Let us know! Montgomery Countryside Alliance also maintains a list:
http://www.mocoalliance.org/community-supported-agriculture.html
Ask a Master Gardener at Twinbrook Library
SATURDAY
JUNE 17, JULY 1, & JULY 15
10 AM – 1 PM
202 Meadow Hall Drive
Rockville, MD 20851
Struggling with your garden? Do you have plant questions?
The Master Gardeners from Montgomery County Cooperative Extension will offer their highly popular plant clinics. Bring your ailing plants or any other gardening questions for expert advice. See below for upcoming in-person events schedule and details:
https://www.facebook.com/MoCoMasterGardenersMD
Common Garden Pests & Diseases
Saturday July 15, 2023
10:00am to 12:00pm
Webinar
Speaker: Carol Allen, faculty member, Department of Plant Sciences, University of Maryland
Fee: $12
Pests and diseases can be significant concerns for home gardeners. Learn to recognize the symptoms of plant disease, the conditions that cause it, and when and how to apply organic and chemical measures. Distinguish between harmful and beneficial insects while exploring pest life cycles and applications of natural, biological, and chemical controls.
Farm Tour 2023
July 22-23, 2023
Did you know that many of the farms on the Farm Tour and Harvest Sale offer fresh, local fruits, vegetables, flowers, plants, and more for sale during the tour? You can tour the farms, enjoy hayrides and music, and buy local to support your local farms.
https://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/…/far…/farm-tour.html
Working the Night Shift: Pollination After Dark
Thursday, August 3 | 12:00 – 1:30 pm | Online via Zoom
Instructor: Emily May
Join Emily May, a pollinator conservation specialist with the Xerces Society, to learn about the pollinators that come out to work as others turn in for the evening. Moths, flies, beetles, and other dusk and night-time pollinators can play important roles in pollinating wild and managed plants. Emily will talk about the ecology, diversity, and importance of these hidden pollinators, and how we can best support them. If you need a reasonable accommodation to participate in this event, please contact Stephanie Pully at pully@umd.edu or (410) 531-1754 on or before July 20.
Great American Gardeners Webinar Series
The American Horticultural Society is pleased to announce the return of its national speaker series featuring current and past winners of the Great American Gardeners Awards and Book Awards. Since 1953, the AHS has been using these award programs to recognize and celebrate horticultural champions that represent the best in American gardening. This dedicated webinar series will provide an additional spotlight on these outstanding individuals.
Each live program will be hosted by Holly Shimizu, former executive director of the United States Botanic Garden in Washington, D.C. and an AHS board member, who will lead a lively and engaging conversation with speakers that will tap into their knowledge and experience. The interactive program format will allow audience members to ask questions of the guests.
Registration is free. RSVP is required.*
Let’s Talk Gardens
Thursdays 12 to 1 p.m.
Smithsonian Gardens
“Grow” your gardening know-how! Our free online gardening program, Let’s Talk Gardens, covers a wide range of topics presented by our own professional staff, as well as guest speakers.
And we encourage you to watch videos in our Let’s Talk Gardens Video Library.
What a great summer season! 
