Paul Gargan
“Rest is not idleness and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of the water or watching the clouds float across the sky is by no means a waste of time.” (J. Lubbock)
Take time to enjoy your garden, but keep up the maintenance work. Keep a daily check on hanging baskets in case they dry out. If they feel light, water them. Feed as often as instructed by the directions on the feed container. Deadhead bedding plants, roses and perennials such as lupins and delphiniums. As soon as they go over, cut out the flowered stems to prevent them producing seed.
With roses, don’t just snip off the dead flowers. Follow the stem down and cut just above a healthy leaf or if there is a young side shoot appearing lower down the stem, cut just above that. Feed your roses. In fact, feed all your plants. This will help you get the maximum out of them. Use a general purpose feed or a special rose feed that is high in potash and magnesium.
Feed
Sprinkle the feed on the ground between the plants. Don’t leave it on the leaves or in the crown of your plants as it will scorch them. If possible, do it before rain is forecast or water it in.
Prune philadelphus and wisteria. With philadelphus, follow the flowering stems down till you find a side shoot that doesn’t have the remains of a flower on its tip and cut just above it. Wisteria must be pruned not once but twice a year, now and then in midwinter. If left unpruned, it is a beast. It will cover whatever it grows against in a mound of foliage and you will never see any flowers.
Cut the long thin tendrils back to 15cm. This stops the plant from taking over. It builds up the amount of shoot flowering spurs, allowing the plant to produce more flowers and less leaves.
When the main stem reaches the limits of the area, you want it to grow. Cut it as well. This will prevent it from invading other areas where you don’t want it.
Dry spell
Continue cutting the lawn. Twice every 10 days is best, if that is possible. If we get a dry spell and the grass starts to turn brown, raise the height slightly.
This will help to keep it green for longer. Every time you mow, trim the edges. You will be surprised how neat this keeps it looking. If during a very dry spell, your grass turn brown and looks dead, resist the temptation to water it. You are just wasting water.
As soon as it rains, the grass will green up again. It’s just the leaf area that is brown. The roots are resting, waiting for the rain.