July means holidays, long days, and (hopefully) sunny weather, giving you a chance to really enjoy your garden. In between watering, weeding, and deadheading to keep everything looking its best, don’t forget to take some time to relax and admire the flowers!
Boma's top 15 July gardening tips
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Consistent Watering: Water container plants and perennials regularly in dry weather. Use stored rainwater where possible, watering in the morning or evening to reduce evaporation. Don’t forget to use moisture control compost to help retain moisture, especially during hot days. Perennials to take care of include Lavender, Salvia, Geum, Digitalis, Astrantia, Gaura, Hydrangea, Campanula, Crocosmia, Verbena, Lupin, Nepeta, and Anemone. Boma also sells Gardena irrigation systems and can advise on installation to ensure your garden stays hydrated with ease.
2. Herb Garden: July is the best period of the year for managing and reaping the benefits of summer herbs. If you don’t have a herb garden already, Boma has instant herb collections for immediate delivery within the M25.
3. Deadhead Regularly: Deadhead roses, sweet peas, and cosmos regularly to keep them flowering. These plants will flower for months if regularly deadheaded, and they make beautiful cut flowers for the house.
4. Boost with Feed: Tomatoes, beans, courgettes, peppers, blueberries, and gooseberries will appreciate a fortnightly boost with a high-potash liquid feed such as tomato feed, which promotes the development of flowers and fruit.
5. Maintain Bedding Plants: Maintain bedding plants by watering, feeding, and using moisture control compost for all plants in planters. Bedding plants include Geranium, Begonia, Petunia, Lobelia, Osteospermum, Cosmos, Calibrachoa, Dianthus, Saxifraga, Fuchsia, and Antirrhinum.
6. Regular Harvesting: Pick courgettes and beans regularly to keep the plants producing more fruit.
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Sow Salad Crops: Sow salad crops like lettuce every couple of weeks for a constant supply through summer. To reduce the risk of lettuce bolting in hot weather, provide shade for the plants in the hottest part of the day.
8. Focus Tomatoes: Pinch out any side shoots on cordon tomatoes to focus the plants’ energies on producing fruit.
9. Earthing Up Potatoes: Mound up the soil around the stems of maincrop potatoes (this is called ‘earthing up’) to stop the sunlight from reaching the tubers and turning them green. Remember, green potatoes are toxic! Harvest the first early potatoes, digging up one or two first to check whether they are big enough – if not, leave them to grow for a few more weeks.
10. Care for Climbers: Give summer pruning to climbers such as wisteria, clematis, jasmine, and honeysuckle. For wisteria, cut back all this year’s long whippy shoots to 5-6 leaves from the main stems. For clematis, jasmine, and honeysuckle, remove any dead or overgrown stems and tie in new growth to support structures.
11. Rejuvenate Geraniums: Cut hardy geraniums back hard when they start to look leggy and tired, and they will produce a flush of fresh new foliage and flowers.
12. Summer Iris Care: For irises that have finished their spring bloom, lift and divide overgrown clumps. Re-plant them with their rhizomes partly exposed so that they can be baked by the summer sun. Some reblooming irises may flower again later in the summer.
13. Pinch Broad Beans: Pinch out the growing tips of broad beans once the pods start to appear. This encourages bushy growth and also reduces the risk of blackfly infestations, as these pests tend to attack tender young shoots.
14. Lawn Care: Mow the lawn regularly, raising the blades to a higher setting if the weather is dry.
15. Imaginative Landscaping: Use your imagination when landscaping with the use of pots and planters in terracotta, glazed, stone, polystone, metal, eco-plastic, and fibreclay; using moisture control compost.
Additional Tips from Boma:
All of these plants, planters, and gardening supplies are available at Boma in the most prolific displays. Visit Boma to enjoy fabulous special offers and get the best gardening advice in London from horticulture specialists that are down-to-earth. With Boma, there is no such thing as a stupid question. Whether it’s plants to fill the border or garden furniture for a party, you’ll find everything you need at Boma Garden Centre to help you get the best out of your garden this summer!
Don’t forget to check out Boma’s exclusive in-store special offers and their range of organic plant care products.
