Gardening by Month - July
Relax and enjoy your garden this month, while keeping on top of all that exuberant growth. There’s still tidying to be done – weeding, deadheading and cutting back – but July is such a rewarding month that it’s good to sit back and appreciate your handiwork, preferably with a cool drink in your hand.
You might want to think about improvements for next year. It helps to take photos and make notes on what has worked well and what hasn’t. This is particularly useful with plant combinations and colour themes.
It’s easy to plant up containers for a burst of colour on the patio. Choose your favourite flowering plants and add them to a pot with fresh compost. You could also plant garden herbs in a pot to use for salads and BBQ marinades, and mint is lovely with new potatoes. Snipping herbs back encourages fresh growth.
Roses are in full bloom and will benefit from regular dead-heading to encourage flowers. You can also feed them early in the month to encourage more flowers. Although modern roses can be dead-headed, leave the old-fashioned types as these will often form hips that provide autumn colour.
Add a layer of mulch to your borders, and particularly to clematis. They have their roots near to the surface, so benefit from mulch to retain moisture and protect exposed roots from direct sun.
If you’re growing your own tomatoes, they should be ripening. Keep on feeding them and leave them on the vine until ripe and juicy. Pick soft fruit regularly to stop them becoming over-ripe. It’s a good move to check all your seasonal fruit and veg daily. You can still sow seeds for spring onions, lettuce, carrots, radish seeds and beetroot. If it’s a dry month, make sure they have plenty of water, ideally in the evenings.
With deadheading, cutting back and lawn mowing, you soon build up heaps of waste material. Make good use of it by turning it into your own compost. Making compost isn’t as difficult as you would think – all you need are the right ingredients and to let nature do the rest. As well as garden waste, you can use vegetable peelings too. We have a wide range of composters available at Garsons, as well as water butts to make the most of rainfall. Ask in the garden centre for advice.
Until next month, enjoy your summer garden.
