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Summer Gardening Tips

The summer will be here before we know it and your garden will be seeing more happy faces and barbecues than it has done for roughly nine or ten months. With this in mind it seems like a good time to tackle those gardening musts so that you’re patch will look fabulous for this outdoor season. If you’ve been religiously taking care of your garden all year then there are only a few touch ups needed but for those of you that have let your paradise patch become a nettled nightmare, now’s the time to get some hard graft done.

•    Protect against fungi and mildew. There are many easy ways to do this and some easy things to look out for, if you’re unsure as to whether the culprit is among you’re plants. Common fungi will leave a white powdery mildew on leaves. Combat this by using a fungicide (found in your local garden centre) or wait until the plant defoliates in the autumn, as the plant will return to normal. Guard against fungi and other mildews by making sure that your grass, plants and shrubs aren’t left wet over night (i.e. don’t water them late afternoon/evening).

•    Pick strawberries as soon as they are ripe. If they’re left on the plant they will over ripen, rot and encourage pests and diseases.

•    Spread the compost that you’ve lovingly created over the borders and flower beds. This adds valuable nutrients to the soil and acts as a mulch, to retain moisture and reduce weed growth. Ensure that the soil is moist before you add the compost.

•    If you’re having trouble with aphids and white fly in the summer months, try and entice beneficial insects and birds into your garden. Remember to spray both upper and lower leaves with neem or pyola oil over a seven to ten day cycle to keep insects from destroying your plants.

•    Keeping slugs at bay. You can protect plants from slugs and snails with slug pellets, course grit or traps. Alternatively, and probably better for the environment and wildlife, try to encourage birds, hedgehogs and frogs to your garden, as they all prey on slugs and snails.

•    Remember to water new plants regularly. Trees and shrubs that were planted last autumn and winter will need to be regularly water as their roots won’t have had a chance to fully develop yet and so the summer months will be particularly hard for them.

•    Cut your grass on a weekly basis. Long grass takes up a lot more nutrients from the soil and it is also harder to cut. It may also leave yellow patches which no one really wants of their lush, green lawn.

•    Try to prune back your rose bushes after their first bloom. You can take one of two approaches to pruning them either dead head the blooms or do a real cut back. If you do choose to do the latter make sure you cut back all the weak and dead wood, as well as the blooms. Once all that is done and dusted clean up all old leaves. This is especially important if they suffered from black spot.

•    Treating black spot. If you’ve got a black spot problem but it’s largely localised and you don’t want to thin out the plant, try a homemade formula of one tablespoon of baking soda mixed with a quarter teaspoon of dishwashing powder in a gallon of water.

•    Keep your late summer and autumn perennials thick, lush and healthy by making sure that you continue to pinch them back.

•    Makes sure that you’ve issued that final prune to all the spring bloom bushes like rhododendrons, azaleas and lilacs by mid-summer at the latest. That way they can begin their new growth for next year.

•    If all these cut backs have left your garden looking a little sparse it’s not too late to plant some blubs that bloom in the summer. Things like dahlias or cannas are perfect for this. It’s also the best to get those last minute quick-blooming seeds in, things like sunflowers, nasturtiums and cosmos will make next year’s summer garden look lovely and this year’s look happy and healthy.

So there you have it. Let’s get gardening!