By Club Gardener, Michael Barratt - July

From the garden shed………..

Hello there, and welcome to my gardening advice section for the month ahead.

July is a month to reward you for all your hard work at the beginning of the season. With the sudden guest appearance of the sun at this time of year make you will probably find that the ground has started to crack. If you find any cracks, don't worry too much - why not turn the situation to your advantage and pour down some gritty compost to assist drainage later on when it becomes wet again and closes up.

On the subject of watering, 'deep watering' is far better than a 'little and often' approach as far as many plants are concerned. A good soaking late at night and then nothing for the next few days will avoid the surface rooting of many plants. Lawns especially benefit from a good overnight soak then nothing for at least a week. They are very resilient and it also encourages deeper rooting.

Keep an eye on hanging baskets, especially those on house walls as they tend to miss most of the rain. Watering in the evening is far more beneficial as there will be limited evaporation. Feeding once a week will not only prolong the flowering but give more definitive colours as well. When feeding, avoid applying dry feeds unless specifically instructed - always try and apply in solution, as both the foliage and roots will benefit - there is always a risk of burning or overdosing if applied dry.
If measuring or dilution rates confuse you, you can now buy food sticks or plugs that give measured doses of food when watering.

Houseplants need attention as well and a major problem at this time of year occurs when you are away on holiday. One neat trick is to put all the plants into a bowl or the sink and put a couple of inches of water in the bottom. Then fill a couple of milk bottles with water and turn them upside down with the necks under the water. The water in the bottles will stay put until the water in the bowl gradually drops. After a while the level of water drops low enough to allow the water in the milk bottles to spill out and replenish what has been lost in the bowl. Make sure you place the bottles between the plant pots so they don't fall over. It's not clever, just basic physics, but it works!

There are whole host of outdoor plants that will need attention this month. Hedges are the obvious start point. If you cut this month then hard trimming will still allow enough time for some fresh growth to 'green' them up again. With the exception of Laurel, most hedges can be trimmed with a hedge trimmer. Laurel can be cut with a hedge trimmer, but be prepared to have dead, cut leaves dropping over the next few months. It leaves the hedge looking unsightly if the cutter is not sharp and there is a snagging on the leaves.

Bedding plants will be in full swing now and one easy way to prolong the flowering, albeit tedious, is to dead-head - a little and often is always far easier.

Rambling roses that have flowered early can have the old flowering stems cut out, then tying in the new ones for next year. Remember to prune all summer flowering shrubs immediately after they have finished flowering and remember to leave the new growth as this will have the flowers on next year.

Wisterias will have made enormous growth and will have a multitude of long winding shoots that all need to be cut back to 7 buds on each one. Some can be removed completely. The removal and/or reduction of shoots helps to divert the plants vigour into developing flower buds for next year. In February these reduced shoots will need to be cut back again to 3 or 4 shoots and set short flowering spurs for future years.

Apples and pears that have made good new growth will need the new shoots reduced back by at least half. Selective picking of smaller or diseased applets will ensure a better crop later on in the year. Cordon, Espalier and fan-trained fruit will need all the new growth reduced to retain the size of trees and to develop the fruiting spurs - leave about 4 or 5 buds per shoot. The extra light given to the fruit will help to ripen and develop the existing fruit on the tree. If there appears to be a lot of fruit this year, don't be afraid to thin out the crop. More crop will undoubtedly mean inferior quality and less new growth for next year.

One of the more prolific flowering shrubs during the summer is the Lavetera or 'Mallow tree'. The most common one, the Lolbia, tends to grow quite tall and can be prone to splitting from the weight of growth and flowers. Rain makes the situation even worse. If the shrub is lightly pruned to a maximum height of 6ft and flowering stems reduced accordingly, splitting can be reduced. Sometimes even when this is done the wind can impose the same sort of damage.

Strawberries will need to be checked over and picked as necessary. Replenish the straw if the weather has ruined the existing straw, especially if there is a good crop of new fruit coming through. Runners coming out from the plants can be lifted and placed into pots, or if they have been rooted can now be separated from the parent plant. Plants that have successfully cropped over the last 3 years may well need to be replaced. It's not worth trying to get them cropping for too many years as the vigour goes resulting in crop reduction and lower disease resistance.

Lilacs, once flowered, can either be deadheaded (which usually is logistically impossible), or if you are feeling very brave, reduced dramatically to encourage new shoots for flowering next year. Just remember to cut above an outward facing shoot and make it clean. If you want to propagate and retain a specific flower type then it has to be from cuttings or layering (seed taken will only revert to one of the parents and will not grow true to type). Layering is fairly simple and involves taking a shoot near to ground level but above the graft and bending it over very gently until it touches or is slightly buried into the soil. Remove the leaves, and flowers if there are any, then peg the branch down into the soil with a piece of wire and leave undisturbed. In a few months time the pegged area will develop roots and can be cut from the parent plant and placed initially into a pot to finish the rooting process. Don't be mistaken in thinking that the suckers shooting from the ground can be used as rooted cuttings - they can't. These shoots are coming from the rootstock below ground. All cultivated lilacs are invariably hybrids and will have been grafted. Only stock above this graft will grow true to type and flower accordingly. Other plants such as Magnolia (some), Rhododendron, Forsythia, Clematis, Honeysuckle, and Cotoneaster can all be propagated this way and it's dead easy.

Red spider will become a problem in hot glasshouses and/or conservatories. Damping down the glasshouse to create a humid atmosphere will help as well as misting plants regularly for those in a conservatory. I would avoid damping down in conservatories, as I tend to find it wrecks the beautiful laminate floors in there. At this time of year there is no harm in placing houseplants outside for a while but try to emulate the same type of positioning i.e. shade, sun, filtered light etc. Many of the large foliage type houseplants love having their leaves cleaned with products such as Bio leaf-shine. It helps to remove all the dust and grime that has built up and allows their leaves to breathe, just like a face cleanser really!

Finally, it's back to watering, when you are giving your garden a well deserved watering, spare a thought for our feathered friends - they need a drink as well as everything and everybody else!

Happy Gardening,