Encouraging the youngsters- gardening tips for late July

School’s out! Woobedoo!  But how are you going to occupy the little darlings for the next six weeks? 

A little horticulture might fit the bill…. Other gardening ideas for this week include working out how to deal with drought and taking some semi-ripe cuttings…….

Dealing with a drought

Some of us (me included) are dealing with a prolonged drought this summer – even Caroline’s got her watering can out in Scotland now! There are a few things you can do to lessen the damage. Use cooled grey water (washing-up, baths etc.) when you can, but never use water that has had bleach or strong salts added to it. Target your watering (using cans rather than a hosepipe) straight at the roots of plants, watering deeply but less frequently rather than a sprinkle every day – this will encourage the roots downwards. Concentrate on watering plants in containers and anything you’ve planted in the last couple of years.

I know they probably look terrible (quite a few of mine do!) but don’t hard-prune shrubs that are struggling and wilting – the shock might well finish them off. They will probably go dormant, but with luck, they will recover when the rain returns. Forget the brown lawn, and embrace the chance not to have to mow it – it will bounce back. Good luck!

Our future gardeners

We are mourning the death of David Austin this week, the absolute doyen of rose-growing, who as a boy, became captivated by the ground-breaking methods of rose-growing that his father pioneered.  The point is that almost every famous gardener, landscaper or environmentalist became fascinated by the outside world at a young age.  But if we don’t get them out there, how are they going to know?

So let’s involve our children and grandchildren as much as we can in our gardening activities this summer, even if to start with, it’s only about making mud pies and watching worms!  Dig potatoes, give them something to climb, or hide in, a path to follow, somewhere to create a den…..  Perhaps a bug hunt and count how many they can find, or a bird-watching expedition? Let them help with dead heading the flowers, making flower arrangements, sowing some seeds, harvesting something for tea, ….. . Actually, we’ve just taken delivery of a lovely trug that might just fit the bill there – check it out in the link below.

If we can gently coax a love of the natural world in the new generation, hopefully we will also be recruiting more potential supporters for the critically-important challenge of tackling climate-change too – win, win 😊

Make plants for free

There are heaps of things that can be propagated by semi-ripe cuttings right now and up until October: climbers such as passionflower (Passiflora), Solanum and Trachelospermum; evergreen shrubs such as Hebe, Fatsia, Viburnum, Berberis, Ceonothus etc.; hedging like laurel and privet (how about propagating your own native hedge?!); woody herbs like sage, rosemary and thyme; even trees  like Magnolia grandiflora, holly and conifers. Honestly, it’s worth having a go with anything!

They are called semi-ripe because the material you use will have hard wood at its base formed during the current season, but the tip will still be soft.

Here’s what to do:

1. In the morning, when plants are turgid, cut below a leaf with a sharp knife of secateurs, giving you a stem 4-6″ long. Put all your cuttings straightaway into a plastic bag to stop them wilting, and put them into compost within 12 hours.

2. Take the bottom leaves off your cutting and cut any big leaves in half to reduce transpiration.  Nip out the growing tip if it is very soft. I don’t bother with hormone rooting powder any more, but if you want to, dip the bottom of the cutting in the powder until it’s well-covered.

3.  Tuck your cuttings into pots of free-draining gritty compost, water them, label them, and put the pots into the greenhouse or on a warm, bright windowsill out of direct sunlight and covered with a clear plastic bag.

One other thing – my sister Laura took delivery of some rootless cuttings of oleander this week, and was instructed to simply put them in a jar of water. These are plants that will readily develop roots in water, so it’s EVEN EASIER to make new plants from old ones.

Loads of houseplants will do it – Monstera, Philodendron, Coleus, Spider plants….as will herbs like basil and mint and I recently did it successfully with rosemary. You just take 4-6″ stems of the parent plant, strip the leaves off the bottom half of the stems, put the cuttings in a jar of water in a warm place in indirect sunlight.

Replace the water every 5 days or so, to prevent mould forming. And wait for the magic to happen. (I should add one extra note about oleander – every part of it is poisonous to humans and pets. Even burning the wood creates toxic smoke. Just be aware if you own a dog, say, that likes to chomp things in the garden….)

Even if you’ve never tried cuttings before, just have a go. Seriously, what have you got to lose?

Gardening shorts

• Late July can be an excellent moment to sow some root crop like radishes, carrots or beetroot. Because they’ll be growing into the cooler months, they will be less likely to bolt, and with a bit of luck will give you some fresh crunchy veg by late autumn.

• Now is the right time to give rhododendrons and azaleas a feed of acidic fertiliser. Something like Miracid or Sequestrene will give them a good boost to start producing buds for next year’s flowering

• I learnt a good lesson recently – I took delivery of some very small (very cheap) delphiniums in May. I moved them from their little containers into slightly bigger pots and nurtured them as they grew. It was apparent that they were ready for a larger home and I began potted them on into bigger containers, but got called away half way through the job to a more pressing task and never returned to it. The ones that I potted on are now much bigger and FLOWERING, the others are still small, weedy and resentful. I relate this story as a cautionary tale about the importance of potting on your plants when they are ready…….

• Don’t forget that houseplants on windowsills can get scorched by the sun. Move them to a cooler spot during hot spells or put a bit of net curtain up to shield them from the blazing rays. We also got this good tip from a reader a while back: ‘if it isn’t possible to move smaller plants away from the glass one trick is to attach a piece of white printer paper to the glass with blu tack. This filters the light enough to stop scorching. It is easy and quick to remove on gloomy days. It also works well for those pots of seedlings in Spring. The sun can be very hot through glass even in March/April.’ Brilliant.

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A hardy perennial with height but doesn’t require staking. Sounds too good to be true? No, this beauty has it all and it’s why it’s Louise’s Great Plant this Month….

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To encourage young gardeners, how about getting them some tools of their own? We think that they would love this adorable garden basket for harvesting veg, carrying things like gloves, trowels, string about……. adults might find it very useful too!

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I made a little video a while back which goes into more detail about how to root cuttings in water like Laura has done with her oleander cuttings,

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