Gardencare advice

July

Check all plants, especially newly planted ones, for water on a regular basis. Water deeply and thoroughly as needed. Regularly water trees and shrubs that were planted last autumn and winter. Their roots won't have had a chance to fully develop yet.

Ensure that soil in hanging baskets and patio planters is kept moist. Remove fading and dead flower heads from plants, this will encourage new flowers. Feed hanging baskets and planters weekly with liquid fertiliser if a slow release fertiliser was not added when planting the basket.

Regularly mow lawns to keep them in shape - removing 'little and often' is the key to a good quality lawn.

Cut the lawn edges with a half-moon edging iron to ensure they are neat and well shaped. Grass growing over the edge can be trimmed with edging shears.

If your grass has grown long while you have been on holiday, give it a cut with the blade set quite high and then lower a few days later, this reduces the chance of the grass going into shock and allowing weeds to get established.

Prune summer flowering Jasmine.

Prune wisteria by shortening the whippy lateral shoots to about six buds from the main stems.

Do not prune Azaleas and Rhododendrons after the second week of July for they soon will begin setting their buds for next year's blooms.

Summer prune fruit trees.

Apple and pear trees will shed some fruit, this is known as the 'June drop'. This is quite natural, it's the trees way of restricting the amount of fruit that develop.

Back to the top