We have reached the middle of August, and it’s like a sauna outside. These hot summer days are a good time to solarize your soil if you have a spot you want to plant in later. 

Solarizing is placing an object or heavy mulch over an area of ground. Black plastic is good, but you have to tack it down. 

Metal such as tin or aluminum is excellent. They are rarely blown around like paper and leaves and they get extra hot and literally cook whatever is in the surface near the soil, including insects. The intense heat will kill the roots of plants and grass over about six weeks. Metal coverings also block rain which speeds up killing of plants.

If you plan to plant fruit trees or ornamental shrubs or trees in the fall this is the right time to start solarizing your soil. Insects are killed as well as weeds and the soil will become softer.

When gardening it is always best to be planning ahead. If you plan to sow flowers or vegetables for the fall, you can start getting that area ready. If you use chemical fertilizers they need a chance to mellow in the soil before you throw out your seed. Fertilize the soil a couple of weeks before you want to plant.

As you clean up annual beds, if there are any mature seed, strip them off and toss them down, especially if you are pulling up the parents. This will place enough seed back into the soil that you may get volunteers next year. 

If you saved seed through the summer; this will give the volunteers the chance to come up when they want, and use your saved seed somewhere else as well as over-seeding the original planting site.

Beauty berries are developing their beautiful neon purple berries. Iris seed pods are close to being ready to harvest. Crinum keep on blooming and caladiums keep on sending up beautiful foliage.

The hot sultry days of August is when foliage plants come to the forefront of a garden’s beauty. Tropical-type plants are lovely in the background with their tall graceful foliage. Plants that have arching foliage are pretty and can enhance privacy. 

By this far into the year, gingers are head-high or taller, have beautiful foliage and many are scented. They make a summer hedge, but collapse with the first hard freeze.

Colorful foliage plants are interesting tucked in to your annuals and perennials. But when the flowering plants have past their peak and are starting to wilt from the heat, beautiful foliage plants are ready to finish out the summer.

Elephant ears come in several colors. From black to mottled dark green and bright lime-green along with the usual green. They are very easy to grow as long as they get enough water. Heights are from two feet to seven feet and some grow in water, such as garden tubs and fish ponds.

Cannas have a few species that have beautiful foliage. Foliage colors are dark purple black, “Australia”; deep green with orange veins and leaf margins, “Tropicana”; bold foliage with yellow and green stripes, “Pretoria,” also called “Bengal Tiger.”

Ferns are an easy-to-fill-in plant that only need occasional watering to keep them happy.

Caladiums are the easiest plants to keep up and they give bright vibrant foliage all summer and fall.

I am out of space, see you next week.

Susan Grooms lives and gardens in Lowndes County.