Oh my goodness, don’t we gardeners have to be adaptable! Record-breaking heat in much of the country this week has brought legions of problems for our favourite hobby!Â
Still, we will soldier on, and jobs this week include helping our plants to survive and recover as best they can, as well as planting veg and herbs in shade, taking some easy cuttings and making your own pot feet……….
Some like it hot
No question, the unseasonal late May heatwave has caused a great deal of stress to a lot of
Apart from mulching the soil, there are other things that can help all sorts of plants cope with this dramatic weather, and here are a few thoughts for the next period of hot weather.
Try to organise your watering regime. Prioritise plants in pots and anything that has just been planted in the
Water deeply right at the base of a plant. Watering cans are much better than sprinklers which can be very wasteful.
Mornings or early evenings are the best times to water. In the warmth of midday, a lot of water can evaporate before the plants can use it. Round here, early morning is the preferable option because evening watering tends to be enjoyed a little too much by masses of slugs and snails.
If you can, move your pots to a shaded area, or rig up some shade for them. It’s exactly what I’m doing in this week’s feature pic. Be careful of your back though – a sack-trolley is a very useful piece of kit for larger containers.
Those gardeners who have taken note of recent climate-change ideas and are now growing lots of drought-tolerant plants will be sitting prettier than many of us at the moment. It might be time to consider making life a little easier for yourself and having at least one sunny part of your patch dedicated to such plants. Could be nice to have just one area that is going to lap up scorchio temperatures with ease!
If you think it’s hot outside, try a glasshouse or greenhouse with all the windows and vents shut! It’s really important to keep these well-ventilated during the summer, or you risk a nasty build-up of pests and fungal diseases. Humidity can be a useful commodity for plant growth of course, so you might think about having all those through-draughts during the day and shutting all the windows and doors etc. at night, when humidity is at its lowest. My sister Caroline got a very unexpected and unwelcome addition to her glasshouse ventilation the other day, but that’s another story….
Veg in the shade
Like lots of people I have several areas of shade in my
But in fact there are quite of few of these that will grow well, even if they only receive sun for HALF the day. These include mint, lovage, parsley and chives as far as herbs go, and peas, runner beans, rhubarb and most root crops when it comes to veg.
Gardening shorts
- I saw such a neat idea the other day. You know how you should be propping up large pots for drainage on little feet but they are always quite pricey? If you buy a small amount of cement and some robust small cake- or muffin-cases, you can mix the cement according to the instructions, pour it into the cake cases and leave it to set. When it’s hardened, you can peel off the cake case, and you are left with some neat little pot-feet which you’ll use upside down to support the pots. Nifty plan, eh!
- Did you know that you can go on sowing French beans right through June to give some tasty crops right into the autumn! It’s fine to sow the seeds straight into the soil now that it’s warmed up, but you may get trouble with mice eating them. If you’re worried that this is likely, then it’s better to start the beans off in small pots, and then plant them out as seedlings. Or even grow them in large pots all the way through the summer.
- Are you weeding like crazy at the moment? Most of us are, and loads of us have found that a razor hoe is the PERFECT implement for the job! Its ergonomic shape and sharp cutting edge are ideal for keeping on top of the unwanted plants in your borders. Do have a look at them in our online shop – they are our bestseller, and rightly so.
- Caroline has been worrying about how her perennial wallflowers are faltering a little now – this is a fantastic time to take softwood cuttings so that you won’t have to go to the expense of replacing lots of popular perennials from the
garden centre. In an earlier blog I gave chapter and verse on how to take softwood cuttings – it’s truly easy and EVERYONE should have a go at it.
Laura and I also made a short video on exactly how to do this – click on this link to watch.
There are hundreds of geraniums from which to choose so why does Louise rate this one so highly? It’s one of her Great Plants this Month:
This razor-hoe is an ultra tough weeder and cultivator which enjoys something of a cult following. It’s loved by gardeners and allotmenteers, and makes short work of any tidying up that needs to be done:
For the TWENTY-FIFTH year my
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