Time to make way for summer bounty

Amarjeet Singh Batth

Your home garden may be full of flowers right now, but if you want to continue enjoying the colour and beauty then it is also the time to prepare for summer flowers. While the range of winters annuals is wide, your choices are going to be limited in summer months. You will have to choose from flowers like Coreopsis, Cosmos, Gaillardia (blanket flower), Gomphrena (bachelor button), Helianthus (sunflower), Kochia (burning bush), Portulaca (moss rose), Rudbeckia, Tithonia , Vinka and Zinnia (Peter pan).

Sowing seeds

Seedlings can be grown in pans or on raised nursery beds about 15-20 cm high and 60-90 cm wide prepared in a small area under partial sunlight. A nursery medium is prepared by taking one part of garden soil, one part of river sand, one part of leaf mould. Add DAP 30 grams per sq m and mix them thoroughly and pass through a narrow wire-mesh to remove lumps and have a fine nursery medium. Drench the nursery medium with 0.2% Bavistin to take care of soil born fungal diseases.

Preparing flower beds

As and when the existing winter flowers stop blooming, take out the plants from flower bed and pots and expose the soil to sun to recharge and sterilise.

• Exposure to sunlight for a week or so is desirable.
•  Make the flower bed weed free and level it so that the nutrients are not carried to low-lying areas.
•  Take 5-6 kg of mature farmyard manure and add DAP 500 grams in a hundred square feet area (10’X10’).
•  Mix these thoroughly so that no lumps exist. Avoid making sunken flower beds that hold water.
•  Prepare flower beds not more than one inch below the ground level with good drainage.
•  The soil should be moist prior to transplantation.
•  Seedlings should be transplanted during evening hours.

Post planting care

The seedlings need proper care which includes need- based irrigation, a weed -free environment, periodic dose of nutrients, regular hoeing, pinching and subsequently removal of spend flowers.

Irrigation

Irrigation is important and tricky. In summers there is a tendency to over water plants. Keep the soil moist and not water logged. As a thumb rule if the plant foliage is drooping in the morning it requires watering. In pots water logging happens if the drain hole is not plugged properly while filling the pot. Good drainage helps plants in all seasons.

Pinching & pruning

Pinching curtails the growth on the main shoot and develops lateral shoots and lateral shoot form sub-lateral shoots and is done to develop the plant in a bushy shape. To have the plants in good appearance selective pruning is done by thinning out the crowding shoots.

Fertilisers

A fortnightly application of fertiliser NPK 20:20:20 at the rate of 1-2 grams per liter of water keeps them in good health.

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Summer flowers

Gomphrena’s flower heads in purple, orange and white resembles a coat button hence is also known as button flower. It is used as a cut flower and also as dry flower as flower does not lose its colour, luster and composition for a long time.

Gaillardia is sown for its mass effect. Gaillardia double is almost perennial with nonstop flowering and can with stand all temperature variations.

Helianthus flourishes in a sunny location. Due to its height it does not go well with other flowering annuals. Hence it should be grown independently.

Kochia has lush green foliage during peak summertime and leaves turn copper-red towards the end of its lifecycle. It is suitable for children parks because of the tender nature of its foliage.

Portulaca is compactly sown and admired for its mass effect and pots. It is a low-growing hardy plant which needs less propagation care.

Tithonia is grown for mass effect and screening. The flowers are used as cut flower.

Vinca perennial have white, red, pink, peach and purple colors. The hybrid varieties are sensitive to water lodging there must be planted on raised beds or pots.

Zinnia’s mass effect is graceful.