You may have packed your suitcases and sorted out your flight tickets in preparation for your two-week summer holiday – but what about the garden?
So many gardeners see all their work go to pot when they are away from home in the summer, as containers dry out, lawns go brown and many plants run to seed in their absence. However, there are ways to minimise the suffering your plants endure if you are away during a prolonged spell of warm, dry weather, so that you can return home to a garden which doesn’t look like it’s been in a full-scale drought.
Your first port of call is to your neighbour and family. Ask if they can water your plants while you’re away and harvest crops such as tomatoes and green beans before they go over, keeping what they want for themselves. Cluster your patio pots together in a sheltered, shady place that is open to the rain, feeding and watering them thoroughly just before leaving. Having them close together will make watering easier, if you have someone to do it for you, and will help conserve moisture if you don’t. If you don’t have anyone to water your containers, take down hanging baskets and sit them directly into a depression in the soil surface in a cool, shady spot and drench them with water so the soil underneath is also wet. If you don’t have an automatic watering system, use an upturned bottle full of water set into the container, which should release the water as the soil dries. Alternatively, invest in some strips of capillary matting tucked into the compost at one end and a bucket of water at the other, which should provide enough moisture for the fortnight you’re away.
Before you go, remove all the blooms from your containers, not just the faded ones. This should conserve the plants’ energy and hopefully will mean that new blooms will have emerged by the time you return home. Don’t worry about your lawn. You can choose to leave it long, to conserve moisture and protect the roots. Don’t feed it to encourage it to grow fast while you’re away. If it has gone the colour of straw on your return, don’t worry because it will pick up again in autumn when the rain comes. Well-established plants in borders shouldn’t suffer too much, as their roots will be deep enough to find some moisture in the soil. Fruit shouldn’t suffer if you’re away in August, as soft fruit will have been picked before you go and apples and pears won’t be ready for harvesting until autumn. Give veg a really good soaking before you go, pick as much as you can just before you leave, blanching and freezing what you can’t use, or give it to a kindly neighbour who may return the favour with a bit of watering in your absence.
If you do rely on your friends and neighbours to do the watering for you while you’re away, make sure you bring them back a present and always offer to return the favour.
Three ways to …
Protect Strawberries
- Lay a bed of straw underneath emerging fruits on a dry, fine day to stop them getting wet and rotting.
- Put netting over the plants, using short sturdy stakes to support the netting and keep the birds at bay.
- Keep an eye on your crops for signs of botrytis (grey mould) and if you see any grey, fluffy mould on the berries cut them off and bin them, checking over the rest of the crop.
Things to do this month…
¨ Continue to feed roses regularly with rose food that is high in potash and magnesium. If they are in a mixed border, feed the whole area.
¨ Prune philadelphus, or mock orange, after it has flowered.
¨ In hot, dry spells, lift the cutting blades of your lawn mower by 1cm (half an inch) so that you don’t cut it too short.
¨ If you are going away, move your containers to a cool, shady spot, stand them in saucers and water them thoroughly before you go. Get family or neighbours to water while you’re away.
¨ Clip privet and other fast-growing hedges.
¨ Take cuttings of clematis.
¨ Cut lavender for drying.
¨ Continue to sow maincrop carrots, spring cabbage, oriental leaves and lettuce.
¨ Thin out weeds from your pond to provide more oxygen.
¨ In the greenhouse, re-pot cyclamen corms saved from last winter and water them very lightly to start them back into growth.
¨ Cut back lupins and delphiniums and the plants may go on to produce a few late flowers.
¨Divide and replant bearded irises
By Hannah Stephenson