It’s summertime, and in the garden, everything is growing like crazy! Now’s the time to really enjoy your garden, and to keep it looking great, here are our top 15 gardening tips for July.
15 summer gardening tips for July
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Sow biennials like wallflowers, honesty and foxgloves now for flowers next spring and early summer.
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Roses, cosmos, sweet peas, daylilies and dahlias all make excellent cut flowers, and cutting them for the house or simply deadheading them will keep more flowers coming all through summer.
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Cut back faded perennials such as hardy geraniums and delphiniums to encourage fresh new leaves and a second flush of flowers.
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Lift and divide bearded irises once they have finished flowering. Replant them with the rhizomes partially exposed so that they can be baked by the summer sun.
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July is the time to summer prune your wisteria, cutting all this year’s long whippy shoots back to 5-6 leaves from the woody main stems.
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Keep sowing lettuce to give you a regular supply of fresh-picked leaves for salads. Lettuce and other salad leaves are prone to bolt in hot weather, so plant them where they will get some shade from the hot afternoon sun.
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Water container plants regularly in hot periods. It’s especially important to water tomatoes consistently, as sudden downpours are likely to result in split tomatoes after a dry period.
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Plants that flower and fruit, including tomatoes, beans, peppers, courgettes, blueberries and gooseberries, will all benefit from fortnightly feeding with a liquid high-potash feed such as tomato fertiliser.
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Pinch out (remove) side-shoots on cordon tomatoes. These are the small leafy shoots that appear in the fork between the main stem and the side stems. Pinch them out by hand to concentrate the plant’s energy.
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Pinch out the tips of broad bean plants once the first pods appear to encourage bushy growth and lots of beans. This will also reduce the risk of blackfly infestations.
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Earth up maincrop potatoes to prevent the sunlight from reaching them and turning them green (green potatoes are toxic). Early potatoes should be ready to harvest this month, but dig up one or two first to check that they are big enough.
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Once beans and courgettes are big enough to pick, harvest regularly to encourage the plants to keep producing fruits.
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Prune stone fruit like peaches, cherries, plums and apricots now while they are in leaf. This reduces the risk of silver leaf infection.
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Plant autumn-flowering bulbs like nerines and colchicums this month for a burst of stunning colour just as other plants are starting to fade.
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Lawns grow fast in summer, so to keep yours looking neat, mow it weekly. In hot, dry periods, mow less frequently and raise the lawnmower blades onto a higher setting to avoid stressing the grass.
With our great range of plants, tools and gardening equipment, you’re sure to find everything you need in our centre, so pay us a visit soon!
