GARDENING COLUMN
By Sara Milne
SOAK UP THE SUMMER SUN
JUKY is the month for you to get out and enjoy your garden whether it’s an open area in the country or a more compact urban space.
The lazy, hazy days of summer are best spent enjoying the plants that you have lovingly nurtured and cared for over the past months that are now in full flower.
You do need to keep an eye on watering this month to make sure your garden doesn’t suffer from dehydration, but make sure you are ‘water-wise’. You can conserve water and help plants in the summer by moving pots out of full sun into the shade where possible. Some tips for good watering include using water-retaining gel in containers, water the area directly above the roots of plants, use grey water from washing up and a good watering less frequently is better for than watering little and often.
Another way to conserve water and moisture is to ensure that there is good ground cover planting in beds and borders – it acts like a mulch helping to suppress weeds and lock in soil moisture and nutrients. Hardy geraniums, campanula and creeping herbs such as thyme are easy growing ground cover plants as are strawberries.
Using strawberries offers a variety of benefits to both plants and gardeners. In addition to providing delicious fruit, their shallow root system helps prevent soil compaction and also improves soil structure whilst their white and pink flowers attract beneficial pollinators. Strawberries like well-draining and fertile soil and thrive in full sun but can also do well in partial shade. They require consistent moisture, especially during flowering and fruiting so need to be watered regularly.
There are several different types of strawberry plants – early, mid and late summer varieties, perpetual strawberries and alpines – with popular varieties including ‘Cambridge Favourite’ – best known and most reliable, producing medium-sized, orange-red berries with a good flavour; ‘Finesse’ – a perpetual with good resistance to disease that produces lots of tasty, heart-shaped fruits; and ‘Alexandria’ – a vigorous heavy cropping alpine.
Some ground cover plants can also be grown as an alternative to a lawn – such as Chamomile, which also makes an excellent herbal tea. It belongs to the Asteraceae (daisy or sunflower) plant family and has been used as a traditional medicine for thousands of years to calm anxiety and settle stomachs. People in ancient Rome, Greece and Egypt used dried chamomile flowers and their essential oils as a medicinal herb. There is some evidence that Chamomile can ease anxiety and maybe even help you sleep better.
Other top tips from the RHS for July jobs in the garden include:
- Deadhead, feed and water for a long-lasting show of flowers
- Clear algae, blanket week and debris from ponds and keep topped up
- Don’t worry if the lawn goes brown, it will bounce back once it rains
- Water tubs and new plants if dry, but be water-wise
- Care for houseplants while on holiday
- Check for pests – especially aphids
- Pick courgettes before they become marrows
- Start picking tomatoes as they ripen and continue to feed and water
- Plant out leeks and brassicas for a winter harvest
- Give regular liquid feed to fruit or veg growing in containers
And finally …
“If I had my way, I’d remove January from the calendar altogether and have an extra July instead.” Roald Dahl”
