'Summer Strong' contest seeks beautiful landscapes that can take the heat
This is image is from the Regional Water Authority's new water-wise gardening campaign. Courtesy Regional Water Authority
Is your water-wise garden ready for a close-up? Here’s your chance to put a regional spotlight on your lawn-less landscape and inspire other residents throughout the greater Sacramento area.
Local water providers are searching for transformed gardens to feature in an upcoming advertising campaign dubbed “Summer Strong.” In particular, the campaign focuses on beautiful, low-water alternatives to thirsty turf such as vibrant native plants and ways to save water including drip irrigation.
Sponsored by the Regional Water Authority (RWA), the “Summer Strong” contest invites Sacramento-area residents to nominate their water-wise yard (or a neighbor’s) online at BeWaterSmart.info/SummerStrong for a chance to be featured on digital billboards throughout the Sacramento region in July and August. Entrants will be eligible to win gift cards from local nurseries.
“The contest is a fun way to showcase what others are doing to create beautiful, water-wise yards ready to take our summer heat,” said Amy Talbot, RWA’s Water Efficiency Program Manager. “We’re looking for a variety of examples, from small-scale projects and do-it-yourself initiatives to larger landscapes and professional designs.”
The deadline to enter is May 31. Eligible entrants must be customers of one of RWA’s member agencies. The RWA includes about two dozen local water providers from Sacramento to El Dorado Hills and Roseville to Elk Grove.
The campaign encourages residents to make their front and backyards “Summer Strong” – “tough enough to muscle through the Sacramento region’s hottest days and still look their best.” That includes such smart gardening practices as watering trees efficiently, adding low-water and native plants, checking soil moisture before turning on sprinklers, installing a WaterSense-labeled smart sprinkler timer and watering plants in the morning to reduce evaporation.
Learn more about creating a “Summer Strong” landscape and enter the contest today at BeWaterSmart.info/SummerStrong.
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Garden Checklist for week of Sept. 15
Make the most of the cool break this week – and get things done. Your garden needs you!
* Now is the time to plant for fall. The warm soil will get cool-season veggies off to a fast start.
* Keep harvesting tomatoes, peppers, squash, melons and eggplant.
* Compost annuals and vegetable crops that have finished producing.
* Cultivate and add compost to the soil to replenish its nutrients for fall and winter vegetables and flowers.
* Fertilize deciduous fruit trees.
* Plant onions, lettuce, peas, radishes, turnips, beets, carrots, bok choy, spinach and potatoes directly into the vegetable beds.
* Transplant cabbage, broccoli, kale, Brussels sprouts and cauliflower as well as lettuce seedlings.
* Sow seeds of California poppies, clarkia and African daisies.
* Transplant cool-weather annuals such as pansies, violas, fairy primroses, calendulas, stocks and snapdragons.
* Divide and replant bulbs, rhizomes and perennials.
* Dig up and divide daylilies as they complete their bloom cycle.
* Divide and transplant peonies that have become overcrowded. Replant with "eyes" about an inch below the soil surface.
* Late September is ideal for sowing a new lawn or re-seeding bare spots.
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