Meanwhile, municipalities are charged with beautification efforts, from planting beds of annuals to caring for hanging baskets on city property. In the greenhouse and at retailers across the country, sales are heating up. Though inventory moves quickly, there’s care required to successfully transport and display healthy plant material of all kinds.

The list goes on, and many of us—professionals and consumers—wonder how we’ll find the time to manage it all. The good news is, there’s a large toolbox of JRM resources you can rely on to prepare soil for planting success, reduce watering needs, accomplish successful transplants, and have fun creating new garden spaces without too much labor to care for them.

Let’s address some “burnout” summer growing situations and how you can take the heat off of your time outdoors and spend more time enjoying the results!

New Plants, Bad Soil
You’re a homeowner who wants .to add a new landscape bed to your yard -- perhaps filled with pollinators that attract butterflies. (More on this later.) Or you’re a landscape professional or grounds manager charged with installing fresh shrubs and perennials to spruce up tired beds. When you invest in new plant material but install it in depleted soil, you will not realize the return of a thriving, blooming, healthy landscape

 >>The Solution: Infuse soil with beneficial bacteria with an amendment that improves soil conditions for plant growth and works for all plants, vegetables, flowers, and trees. Work Plant Thrive into the soil while planting.

At the same time, by incorporating Soil Moist Plus into the planting space, the potassium-based horticulture and landscape produce reduces plant watering by 50% and feeds plants with a time-release fertilizer for eight to nine months, drastically reducing maintenance. Also, the amendment reduces transplant shock and plant stress while improving soil aeration.

Thirsty Containers, Stressed Plants

There are so many reasons to love container plantings. Vessels come in a wide range of sizes, and you can literally plant a garden in a container and enjoy a bounty. Changing out plantings each season offers ever-changing versatility, and containers are also ideal for properties without yards or smaller landscapes. From front porch wow factor to indoor greenery, containers are an easy way to make a big impact. But the downside is, less soil means less water retention, and without careful monitoring, containers can dry out fast and stress plants—sometimes to the point of no return.

>>The Solution: Containers of all sizes benefit from Soil Moist Natural, a completely safe and biodegradable product. A little goes a long way: use 1 teaspoon per 10-inch container and incorporate into the soil at the root level. It holds several hundred times its weight in tap water and releases it back to plants as soil dries out.

Long Days, Burn-Out Lawns

Landscape professionals are in full-gear, and despite their proven lawn care programs to keep turf healthy, maintaining lush turf is not always easy when Mother Nature casts a drought spell. What if the water you provide a lawn could “work harder” and also enhance the efficacy of fertilizer and nutrients?

>>The Solution: As an OMRI listed product, Water-Aide can be used by organic growers on all plants and vegetables. It’s a combination wetting agent, soil penetrant and drift retardant. Basically, this means it increases the efficiency of water and helps it penetrate soil with less runoff and a more even spread. Because of this, it enhances fertilizer and nutrient uptake.

Selling Wow Factor, Add Insurance

Retailers and nurseries selling to consumers are blooming with business during summer, and inspired customers are filling their trunks with fresh annuals, new varieties, veggies, hanging baskets and more. Your operation takes care to ensure proper watering and care. But you can go one step further to ensure those plants will stay healthy after they leave your grounds and are “re-homed.”

Solution: Send home some growing success. Retailers can offer “insurance” to customers and improve growing success with a Soil Moist display of products they can take home.

Inspiring Project: Build a Pollinator Perennial Planter Native plants attract essential pollinators like bees, beneficial insects, and butterflies. You can carve a spot in your landscape to create a native plant bed, or simply select perennials for a container garden that will make a difference in your own back yard.

When selecting plants, think, “thrills, fills and spills.”

Thrills: Go for height and statement. Some choices are Cardinal flower that grows up to 2 feet tall. Another choice is coneflower in a spectrum of colors. Consult with your local extension service for a list of native plants that are appropriate for your area. These selections thrive in Ohio and other states, but native plants are highly regional.

Fills: These plants populate the container space and give it a lush feel. Ferns are an option, and coneflower can double as a filler when a taller thriller is center stage. Again, talk to your local nursery or extension service for ideas.

Spills: Spillers flow over the container, and some examples are creeping phlox and sedges.

What’s in store for summer? How about “storing” more water so you can save time, money, and resources? JRM has a legacy of treading lightly on the environment as a longtime innovator in landscape and nursery solutions that are good for the earth and beneficial for plants. Tell us how you use Soil Moist products at home or in your business—and send us a picture of your pollinator garden project.