Here are our gardening tips for July:
- Watch out for pests and diseases. Greenfly and blackfly can multiply especially fast. Remember that they are a part of the food chain and other beneficial insects will feed on them like ladybird larvae. If you have a bad infestation, consider spraying with a soapy solution which won’t harm other insects.
- Deadhead roses as cutting off old flowers will encourage them to continue to grow and provide more flowers later in the year. Some roses finish flowering in July, and this is a good time to prune them but not too severely. Just tidy them up.
- Deadhead annuals such as geraniums and cosmos. As they only last one season their goal is to set seed so by removing spent flowers the plant will continue to flower until the first frosts.
- If you have plants in pots the compost will run out of goodness after about 6 weeks so to encourage healthy plants it’s a good idea to water them with a diluted tomato feed which encourages flower growth.
- If you have Box hedges, watch out for the Box caterpillar which can decimate your plants. Originally from China these beasties have spread widely in the UK and have destroyed many hedges. The National Trust’s Polesden Lacey replaced all their plants with a different type because of the damage they caused. First signs are eggs underneath leaves followed by yellowy green caterpillars. These then form silky cocoons before developing into moths. Hose off or manually remove the caterpillars and cocoons and then treat with Topbuxus insecticide (Amazon supplies it). These caterpillars are the only ones that eat the plant’s leaves and if treated this kills the caterpillar and the cycle is broken.
- Prepare your garden for holidays (hopefully) – water well, maybe move planted pots into a shady spot. Plan for someone to take care of things if you are going away; to water in your absence to avoid a return to dead plants and, if you are growing vegetables, they could pick and use them whilst you are away.
- Supply of water may be short. Collect and conserve what you can. Install and use water butts to collect rain from your gutters.
- Don’t worry about watering your grass in a dry spell – it is very resilient. Maybe leave it a bit longer when you cut it as this will improve its resilience.
- Clip fast growing hedges. Please check all hedges before cutting that there are no nesting birds. For those with Leylandii, this is a good time to cut them back. You can cut right back to the first green growth on the branch and it will continue to grow. If you cut back past that it won’t. If they grow too tall it might be a job for the lumberjack (sorry – tree surgeon).
- July is also a good time to divide plants with rhizomes such as Irises and Lily of the Valley. Rhizomes look like stem ginger (which is another plant grown from rhizomes). Use a fork to lift the plant out of the ground making sure you don’t spike the rhizome. Pull the clump apart (maybe into two or three separate bits) and remove the oldest growth. With a sharp knife or scissors, cut down the leaves to half their length and replant. The top of the rhizome needs to be exposed to the sun to ensure that it flowers next year.