How to keep your plants healthy in the sun

Now summer’s here with a bang, let’s have a look at how to keep the garden looking tip-top and also a few jobs you can be getting on with to take advantage of this fine weather!
Keep your plants well wateredKeep your plants well watered
Keep your plants well watered

Just looking around, you can see how much healthier the plants are looking this year. They have the sun to encourage strong upright growth and flower development and the heat to encourage development and root growth, followed by the odd shower to help keep them watered.

In dry spells pay attention to watering newly-planted plants; it’s a great time to plant summer perennials as there are three growing months ahead to ensure establishment before winter and in the sunshine plants develop a lot quicker than early or later in the year. So, when planting, make a bowl shape with the soil around the base of the plant so water can collect and slowly drain into the soil rather than running off.

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I may always go on about using bark in the garden but it’s great! Using it as a mulch on your flower beds doesn’t just stop little seeding weeds but will reduce the amount of water evaporating from the soil and keep the plants moist. Bark won’t stop suckering weeds like couch grass or buttercups – these need to be selectively sprayed with roundup and a great tip is to fit a cut-off fizzy pop bottle to the end of your lance and you can then spray among your plants without the risk of drifting spray causing damage!

Any pesky little weeds on the surface can be hoed off in dry conditions rather than tediously pulled out as they will dry up and die off, then put the bark on to stop more emerging in the future.

In this hot weather it is key to keep the greenhouse shaded to stop it overheating and water it at the end of the day regularly rather than the start so the water doesn’t then evaporate through the hot day and it will then soak in more effectively.

So, looking at the coming month, keep planting, keep watering, don’t let the weeds seed around and make you more problems... but more importantly sit back and enjoy the sunshine at the same time as taking in the result of all the hard work you put in this spring!