The Last Days of Summer
The last days of August, the nights are getting cooler, days are getting shorter and
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This is the time to be out collecting seed, gathering fruit and enjoying the fruits of our labor. Our dreams in spring are now reality. Yet the garden season is not over yet. One of the best times to plant many of our trees, shrubs, perennials, and bulbs will be here soon, when the rains return.
The maritime west is still feeling the drought, so the late summer garden needs some
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We had two years in a row of dry springs and exceptionally hot summers. I see evidence of many of our native trees and shrubs stressed or even dying from the long drought. I speculate they could not adapt to the longer, drier droughts we have experienced the last few years. Even the most drought tolerant plants, adapted to our Mediterranean-type summers, seem to be suffering. It is important to give your garden plants a good deep soak during these last days of drought, to insure your plants are going into winter healthy and hardy, ready to take on any cold our weather will throw at us.
Therefore, as we scurry around getting our last vacations in, gathering the garden harvest, weeding and readying our gardens for the colder months, take the time to relish the late summer and early fall garden. If we planned our gardens for color for this time of year, breathless beauty awaits us.
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