July
What to do if you haven’t much time
- Keep mowing – not too short, as longer grass survives heat better (if we get some)
- Trim the edges of the lawn for a quick tidy up, even if you don’t have time to mow. Trust us – it works!
- Deadhead roses, alstroemerias, pinks, day lilies, petunias (not needed on Million Bells), annual geraniums (pelargoniums).
- Feed, feed, feed pots and baskets with high potash food like tomato food.
Other jobs
Trees, Shrubs & Hedges
- Watch out for black spot, rust and mildew on roses in particular
- Cut lavender for drying
- Prune early summer-flowering shrubs
- Remove any unwanted growth from the bases or trunks of trees and shrubs
- Take semi-ripe cuttings
- Pot up or plant out softwood cuttings
- Trim conifer hedges
- Try air layering climbing plants
- Prune wisteria
Perennials
- Divide irises
- Disbud dahlias
- Continue to cut back faded flowers
- Harvest seeds from perennials
- Layer pinks and carnations
- Plant autumn-flowering bulbs
Fruit & Veg
- Keep harvesting vegetables as soon as they are ready
- Harvest early potatoes, shallots, onions, globe artichokes, garlic planted last year
- Sow peas, vegetables for autumn harvesting, spring cabbages
- Sow autumn and winter salads
- Finish planting out winter brassicas
- Stop outdoor cordon tomatoes
- Endives can be blanched
- Watch out for tomato problems
- Begin to earth up celery
- Lookout for potato and tomato blight
- Stop climbing beans when they reach the top of their supports
- Pick and dry herbs
- Take cutting from herbs
- Harvest summer-fruiting raspberries, blackcurrants, red and whitecurrants
- Summer-prune red and white currants
- Prune summer-fruiting raspberries
- Continue training new canes of blackberries and other hybrid berries
- Continue training fan-trained fruits
- At the end of the month begin summer- pruning trained apples and pears
- Thin out fruit on apples and pears
- Support heavily laden fruit trees branches
Lawns
- Mow and trim edges once or twice a week
- Don’t water unless absolutely necessary
- Give the lawn a boost with a liquid fertilizer
Containers and bedding
- Maintain annuals and tender perennials
- Finish planting out summer bedding plants in baskets
- Transplant biennial seedlings
- Cut and dry everlasting flowers
- Disbud tuberous begonias
- Water and feed containers regularly
Under cover
- Keep the greenhouse well ventilated
- Start taking fuchsias cuttings
- start removing foliage from tomatoes
- watch out for tomato disorders
