Gardening Guides
Central Plains Gardening
Central Plains Gardener's July Checklist
Can you believe there are only 2 important garden tasks this month? Find out what they are here
If you have a garden consisting mostly of plants native to your area, then your garden is on automatic pilot this month — enjoy those sexy blooms! A native garden also keeps pests in check by attracting beneficial predators such as ladybugs, wasps, praying mantises and birds. As the temperatures rise, keep up with deep watering of the more high-maintenance vegetable garden every two or three days — even consider installing a drip irrigation hose above the soil but underneath the mulch. Otherwise, it's time to enjoy summer flowers.
I had to start out with an eye candy shot. In this bed are a variety of butterfly-attracting coneflowers, bee-attracting monarda, allium bulbs, burnet and wild quinine.
Let's go on a mini flower tour of what could be blooming in a Central Plains native plant garden. This is wild quinine (Parthenium integrifolium, zones 4 to 8; find your zone), a 3-foot by 3-foot perennial with long-lasting white mini-cauliflower blooms. I use it because it's just so darn unique — have you ever seen flowers like this? Wild quinine grows in dry to medium soils of any kind in full sun.
Queen of the prairie (Filipendula rubra, zones 3 to 8) puts up cotton candy puffs of delicate pink flowers that smell like roses. Four feet tall and wide, this queen slowly spreads to form a small colony. It prefers medium to wet soil in full sun or partial shade and is deer tolerant.
Tall tickseed (Coreopsis tripteris, zones 3 to 8) is a sturdy, long-blooming, slowly spreading cousin of the more common smaller varieties we all know so well. Good at attracting butterflies and even some birds, it takes moist to dry soil, needs full sun and reaches 6 to 8 feet tall on slender stems.
I said wild quinine was unique, but so is American senna (Senna hebecarpa, zones 4 to 8) — we’re getting wild this month! A perennial that acts like a 4-foot by 4-foot shrub, it has leaves that are unique, plus the blooms feed native bumblebees and the seed heads are quite ornamental in winter. American senna likes moist to medium soil and full sun.
If you like butterflies, don't forget Liatris (Liatris spp, zones 3 to 8). There are many varieties that come in different shapes and colors while taking dry to moist soil, so find the one that's best for you.
Whatever you do in the garden this month, make sure to spend time getting up close and personal with your fleeting flowers — just like the insects do. The closer you get, the more you'll learn as your wonder develops. For example, have you ever looked closely at a milkweed bloom? I mean, isn't it just neat? What summer flowers do you like to get close to?
See more ways to attract garden wildlife
See more ways to attract garden wildlife