Your trees and shrubs are a growing investment worth protecting and should be an essential part of your summer landscaping care.

Ensure Adequate Sunlight

For shrubs, the specific type of plantings you have will determine how much sunlight and shade they need. Keep this in mind when you plant new shrubs this season. If your shrubs need more shade than your current landscape has to offer, consider adding new trees or placing a decorative fixture in your yard that offers shade.

Pruning

Along with proper sunlight, shrubs need trimmed, or pruned, to control and shape their growth. Pruning will help stimulate the plant into a “growth spurt” and promotes fuller, stronger growth throughout the season. While the best time for pruning depends on your planting, non-flowering shrubs can be pruned at any time of year aside from late summer.

Pruning trees encourages their growth, too. During the summer, it’s helpful to check your trees for any dead, diseased or damaged branches as well as remove excess weight from mature trees. Summer is also a good time to prune flowering trees that have finished blooming.

Watering

With the unpredictability of Kansas weather, the best way to ensure your trees and shrubs grow strong and healthy is to water on a consistent basis. New trees require regular watering for disease prevention, and deep watering will promote the growth of robust roots underground. If your leaves begin wilting or browning at the edges, it could be a sign of drought stress. Be sure to check the soil moisture once a week – it should be moist, but not wet, 4-6 inches below the ground’s surface.

Do you have flowers around your trees and shrubs? Summer is also a great time to deadhead perennials to help promote new growth and flowers.

Deadheading can be done throughout the growing season and is best done when the flower’s appearance begins to decline.

Want more landscaping tips? Learn about our tree and shrub care services and contact us with any questions!