5 YEAR GUARANTEE July is the time to sit in your garden with a nice cup of tea or glass of wine and appreciate all your hard work from previous months. Remember to ask a neighbour to check on your plants and pots if you are taking a holiday this month, particularly if the weather starts to heat up.
Here are a few things that you can be getting on with this month…
- Sow flower seeds of biennials now to ensure a beautiful show next year. Now is also the perfect time to sow vegetables for harvesting later in the year and early next year such as carrots, chard, beetroot, kale and french beans.
- Prune and tidy shrubs & perennial plants. Prune wisteria by removing all the long shoots to approximately 20 – 25cm from the main branch.
- Cut back perennial herbs to encourage new fresh leaves and lavender when flowers are finished.
- Dead-head faded flowers from annuals and perennials to encourage new buds to form.
- Pinch out growing tips of tomatoes, even cherry. They should now have plenty of fruit on and feed weekly with a liquid tomato food.
- As the temperatures increase, be sure to water veg and plants thoroughly in the morning to prevent dehydration and dropping. Don’t forget to water the soil and not the leaves to prevent scorching.
- Feed your roses with a high quality rose feed and dead head regularly to prolong flowering.
- Prune plum trees in dry weather, when silver leaf fungal disease is less prevalent. Water fruit trees and bushes, then lay a thick mulch of garden compost around their base to hold in moisture.
- Keep watch for pests such as lily beetles, snails, aphids and vine weevils, and remove before they do too much harm. Especially check crops such as runner beans for aphid and rub or wash them off straight away, before they multiply.
- Water and feed sweet peas regularly, pick the flowers every few days, and remove seed pods to prolong flowering.
- Take large-leaved houseplants into the garden and hose them down to clean off accumulated dust.
- Keep mowing lawns regularly, but raise the cutting height to leave the grass longer during dry weather.
- Top up bird baths, ponds and water features during hot weather.
- Thoroughly water new trees, shrubs and perennials planted in spring, to help them through dry spells.