Garden Tools: tips, resources and reviews for gardeners

Daylily resources:

• Daylilies for the Garden by Graeme Grosvenor (Timber, 1999) reveals all about care and culture, botany and describes hundreds of daylily cultivars with color photos.
• The Puget Sound Daylily Club meets four times a year and maintains display gardens at the Ballard Locks and the Highline SeaTac Botanical Garden. Members receive a newsletter. To join contact Gary Fanthorpe, 17933 Brittany Drive SW, Normandy Park, WA 98166 thefuzzies@comcast.net
• The American Hemerocallis Society reports the following daylilies are the most popular among members of the Northwest region: STRAWBERRY CANDY, CANADIAN BORDER PATROL and BETTY WARREN WOODS

Dahlia resources:

• The Gardener's Guide to Growing Dahlias by Gareth Rowlands (Timber, 1999) tells all about growing dahlias with lots of color photos.
• The Puget Sound Dahlia Association holds monthly meetings, maintains a display garden at Volunteer Park in Seattle, and participates in the American Dahlia Society's annual shows. Members receive a newsletter. To join mail $15.00 to Dale Hylton, Treasurer, Puget Sound Dahlia Association, 10820 Oakwood Avenue South, Seattle, WA 98178.

To find pictures of insects go online to www.insectimages.org, Developed by Bugwood Network and the USDA Forest Service, this free database can be browsed by category of insect or keyword searched.

Once a mystery insect has been identified go to Plant Disease and Insect Identification Pests Leaflet Series from WSU for information on insects commonly found in western Washington or Insect and Pest Series Index from Ohio State University for general garden pest fact-sheets.

While vegetable gardeners are inundated with zucchinis and other summer produce it can be hard to imagine the winter garden. But July is the time to plant seeds for fall and winter crops of cabbage, Asian greens, collard greens, spinach and lettuce. Transplants should go in the ground in mid August. Perennial and biennial flowers can also be started from seed right now. For an excellent list of what plants to sow throughout the year check out The Maritime Northwest Garden Guide produced by Seattle Tilth. It is available for $12.50, including tax and shipping. Call 633-0451 or go online to order a copy.

Keep harvesting all those beans, zucchini, cucumbers and other summer vegetables to keep the production going. Any fruit left to mature on the plant will cause flowering to slow and reduce the harvest. If you can't keep up with your bean plants why not try pickling? Here are two Web resources that give explicit safety instructions and recipes:

• Making Pickles
• Chutney recipes
• Pickling recipes(pdf)

Add old fashioned charm to your garden with hollyhocks (Alcea rosea). These stately and edible flowers grow up to seven feet tall in shades of red, pink, yellow and white. Technically biennial (growing leaves the first season, flowering the next summer, setting seed then dying), hollyhocks can be coaxed to flower a few more seasons if stopped from going to seed. The down side to growing hollyhocks is the potential for their leaves to look tattered from rust disease and weevil holes. Never mind - just plant them at the back of the boarder where only their flowers will show.

By July it's basil season again. If basil transplants are sulking it could be because they were planted too early in the season. This annual herb resents chilly night temperatures. If they don't perk up with warm sunny weather just try again with new transplants. Plant basil in full sun in fertile, well drained soil. Pinch out the growing tips to encourage branching.

The best time to pull up weeds with long tap-roots, like dandelion and yellow dock, is just after a good soaking rain. Even without a special tool, the tap-root can be wiggled a bit and then tugged right out of the ground. If even a bit of root is left behind it will regrow, but the plant will be weaker and will eventually die if the tops are cut off repeatedly. A good article on controlling dandelions organically is available from Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides.