Keep sowing! 15 Easy Gardening Tasks In July To Extend The Growing Season | Life and style

Tmidsummer should not stop seedlings and growth. After a humid May, followed by a period of hot days, many gardens will be teeming with lush vegetation. But if yours fails to deliver, there is still time to sow and plant, as long as you choose the right things.

Five things you should plant

• Nerines are fall-flowering bulbs that offer candy-pink fireworks on long stems just when everything else is dying. The Bowden Lily, Nerine bowdenii, is the most rustic, and does well in sunny gravel gardens: the base of a brick wall is ideal.

• While buying roses in the middle of winter makes financial sense – bare root roses are much cheaper than those bought in pots – there is something to be said about being able to see and smell a rose before you get it. buy, because one person’s delicious bouquet is another’s. off-putting aroma. You can now plant roses in large containers to instantly add scent and color. Cultivars labeled as “patio roses” are generally 30 to 60 cm tall and can therefore be installed in smaller gardens; Queen Mother is a repeat flowering rose with semi-double seashell pink flowers that will attract bees.

• Oriental greens do best if planted after the summer solstice, so it’s time to put these crops in the ground. There is a dizzying range, but some of the most familiar are tatsoi, mizuna, pak choi, and mibuna. You can buy collections of young plants from mail order nurseries or consult your garden center. It’s not too late to start from seed either: Real Seeds has a great selection.

• If your borders appear sparse, dahlias can add color as summer approaches. You can buy potted dahlias ready for the garden online or at garden centers, and rather than trying to poke them into the ground, you can potted them in large containers to fill in any gaps with a minimum. effort. Dahlias with smaller flowers tend to perform better; just be sure to protect them from slugs and snails.

• Sown now, bush green beans can produce a good harvest in a matter of weeks and do not require a support network to be set up when they reach knee height. The Speedy cultivar is, as the name suggests, quick to grow and will withstand the first frosts.

Five garden maintenance tasks to accomplish

• If your tomatoes are blooming and maybe even fruiting now, it’s time to do a count. Tomatoes bloom and bear fruit in clusters – stems that emerge from the main stem. Once you have four or five flowering clusters, it’s time to stop the production of the plant by cutting off the top of the main stem, above the last cluster you want to keep. This prevents the tomato from putting energy into the fruit which will not have time to ripen. Feed regularly with food for tomatoes and water well.

• Bearded irises don’t bloom when crowded, so if yours aren’t performing well, it’s probably time to divide the clump. Carefully remove the rhizomes (the bumpy, stubby stems at ground level from which irises grow) from the soil with a fork and cut them into pieces, each with a fat, healthy rhizome attached. Disregard anything that looks shriveled, then cut the leaves and roots in half and replant so that the rhizomes are resting roughly at ground level – a little deeper in sandy soils.

• Terracotta pots and hanging baskets can require a bit of maintenance: both lose a lot of water through evaporation in hot weather, so remove any weeds that might compete with your plants, cut back irregular growth, and remove them. dead flowers to encourage more. Regular feeding and a deep soak every few days rather than dripping water here and there will help plants perform better.

• It’s time to give rhubarb a break from harvesting so it can grow back and be ready for next year. If it has started to flower, cut the flowering stems back to ground level. For those looking for a longer rhubarb season, add the Livingstone variety to your vegetable garden, as it grows in late summer and fall.

• Dead roses will keep flowers longer: cut just above the top seam of the leaf. Roses are hungry plants, so if yours are breathless after a bloom spurt, they will benefit from being fed a proprietary rose fertilizer.

Five more ways to enjoy your garden

• Love-in-a-mist (Nigella), pot marigold (Calendula), opium poppies, and other flowering annuals all pop seed heads by the dozen; once they’re dry and look like straw, pick them, stems and everything, and hang them upside down in a ventilated place inside, with a paper bag on top to catch the seeds. Buy glass envelopes to keep them in a cool, dry place, ready to sow in fall or spring in places where you have noticed a lack of summer color, or share them with other gardeners.

• If you are cutting the grass after a vacation or a break from mowing, check carefully that there are no hedgehogs, toads and frogs, which all like to hang out among the long stems. Cut grass can be added to the compost heaps in thin layers, alternating with torn cardboard, or used as mulch on your vegetable patch or garden.

• Water is a precious resource, so make the most of what you have available by installing water tanks on your downspouts. “Gray” water from dishes and baths can be used safely on inedible products, but use it immediately rather than storing it. Water early in the morning or late at night to minimize the amount of moisture evaporating from the sun before the plants have time to use it.

• If you planted a tree last winter, it is worth watering it during times of drought to keep it from under stress when setting it up. As the trunk grows, keep an eye on the ties and loosen them to accommodate its increasing circumference.

• Harvest lavender in the morning to get the most out of essential oils. Pick stems where all the flowers have not opened and cut them off with a pair of garden scissors or pruning shears. Hang them indoors, tied in bunches to dry.