Gardening Experts Reveal Their #1 Summer Gardening Tips
Many gardeners experience a range of different issues whilst gardening in the summer time, which is why we decided to ask the experts for their top gardening tips to maintain a happy, healthy garden.
Here you'll find a range of great tips, tricks and personal techniques from several experienced gardeners.
Whether you primarily use your garden to seasonally plant flowers, grow your own vegetables or you simply like it to look presentable for the right occasion, expect to find valuable tips to enhance your gardening knowledge and avoid any disasters this summer!
My top gardening tip is mulch.
The earth hates to be exposed. In nature, weeds appear very quickly on bare soil as the earth tries to re-cover itself as fast as it can.
For some reason, probably cosmetic, many people like to see vast patches of bare weed-free soil in their beds. It's a bit like people who choose drastic beauty treatments that carry health risks. Leaving bare soil results in soil erosion and mineral and water loss.
It also means lots of weeding. If you leave soil exposed, you will kill all of the beneficial mycorrhizal fungi that protect the plant roots. Mulching on the other hand, will improve soil quality, sometimes feed your plants, retain moisture and warmth and save you time weeding and watering. It also reduces the chance of your plants drying out and saves water.
You can mulch with lots of different things like: cardboard or carpet, fallen leaves, sheep's wool, chopped and dropped comfrey, straw, wood chip, stones or rhubarb leaves. You can even grow your own green manure and really boost the soil.
The Summer can be the hardest season of all for
gardening. After the rush of growth in late spring, keeping
up with all the jobs to do to keep the garden looking just
‘right’ can seem like an uphill battle. There’s the weeding,
the watering, the dead heading, the pruning, mowing,
edging, hedge trimming, tying-in and more and more
watering. The ground is often too hard to work and there’s
always something you forgot to stake, by which time it is too late.
Then you have to contend with the ants, bees and
horseflies, slugs, snails, rabbits, chickens and in some
gardens even deer.
Children playing gamesand diving into the borders after lost balls and dogs digging holes and the neighbours cats - well Iwon’t even go there...
The sweltering heat and relentless sun can burn you up and
slow you right down.
Then family and friends are outside enjoying being in the
garden. Eating drinking and admiring your handiwork and all you can see are the jobs that still need to be done.
My top tip for summer gardening is stop look and listen.
Sense the lingering perfumes on the air and the breeze
wafting through the leaves and petals. See the light shining
through all the different greens and coloured petals. Just
enjoy the remarkable detail and structure nature has created from the tallest tree to the tiniest weed.
This is the most important thing to do in a gardeners year,
as all too soon it is gone.
Lastly, don’t forget to give yourself a pat on the back and
maybe a large G&T as you see all your hard work coming to
fruition.
Alexandra Campbell
posted on Tuesday, 23 June 2015 09:29:45 Europe/London