July is often the warmest month of the year and your plants will be relying on you to help them cope with the hotter, drier conditions.
Here are our top 10 tips for ensuring that your July garden remains in good shape and that you continue to enjoy those magnificent blooms.
Top 10 July Gardening Tips
1. Water Container Plants
Even during a wet summer, container plants will need watering.
Thick, lush foliage can prevent the rain from reaching the soil, so make sure that you water near the planter’s rim and don’t just give the leaves a sprinkle.
Purchase a water butt to conserve rainwater and continue to water your plants first thing in the morning and last thing at night.
2. Feed the Lawn
Your lawn will need feeding this month, particularly if you didn’t provide it with a spring feed.
Choose a suitable summer feed to ensure it receives the necessary nitrogen, continue to mow twice weekly and over-seed any sparse areas to keep the whole lawn looking nice and green.
3. Deadhead Bedding Plants
Nip-off any fading blooms from bedding plants and flowering perennials.
This ensures that all of the plants’ energy goes into growth and producing new blooms.
It also prevents them from scattering too many seeds into unwanted areas.
4. Hoe Weeds
Weeds thrive in the sunshine, so you will have to work hard to stop them with regular hoeing.
Be particularly vigilant for moss, which sucks up the nutrients that are vital to your lawn.
5. Damp Down Greenhouse Floors
Even with air vents, conditions in your greenhouse will be oppressively hot so, twice a day, pour water onto the greenhouse floor.
This will increase humidity and prevent your plants from losing too much water through their leaves.
6. Care for Houseplants Whilst on Holiday
The school summer holidays begin this month and, consequently, many of you will be going away.
Although they can survive a few days without care, houseplants need watering before you go and moving to a cooler area, well away from the window.
If you’re away for more than a few days then ask a neighbour to pop by and water them for you.
7. Harvest Fruit
Your peaches and apricots should be fully-coloured by now.
Once the flesh near the stalk is soft, they are ready to eat.
Pick courgettes now for the best possible taste and continue to feed fruit that is still growing as your compost’s nutrients could be running low.
8. Control Aphids
Aphids suck the sap from your plants and spread disease, so kill them on sight.
If left alone, they will quickly multiply and far more niggly, time-consuming treatment will be required to save your plants.
9. Prune Wisteria
July is the perfect month to cut back your wisteria for the second time this year.
Ensure the sun can get to the older wood, which helps buds to form and improves air circulation.
This will not only improve your wisteria’s appearance but reduce the risk of disease too.
That’s job done until next year.
10. Maintain Ponds
Surface weeds and debris can quickly take over your pond, so be sure to regularly remove them with a stick or net.
Also, in hot conditions water evaporates, which makes it more difficult for fish to breathe.
The best way to top up a pond is with rainwater from a water butt.
Garden Supplies for Sale
Here at Buy Sheds Direct, we know how much you love spending time in your garden.
That’s why we stock a superb range of greenhouses, wooden planters and other garden supplies, to help you make the most of it the whole year round.