A Few Handy Summer Gardening Tips

The summer is a busy time for gardeners – some plants will grow like wildfire and others will be liable to perish under the hot summer sun. With a little TLC and plenty of water there is no reason why every plant shouldn’t flourish and bloom in the summer months – extra water and fertilizer is really the key to having a beautiful summer garden.

Here are a few more gardening tips to help you get the most from your garden this summer.

Lawn Care

It can be a little tempting to over water lawns during the summer months, I know, you wouldn’t think it possible but a lawn only really needs two – three inches of water per week.

Watering your lawn (and the rest of your garden) early in the morning will reduce the amount of water which is lost because of evaporation.

You need to treat your lawn every 4 or 6 weeks with some lawn food – the slow release food is the best choice.

Don’t forget to mow your lawn quite regularly. You should mow the grass every time it has grown around a half an inch to an inch for the best results.

Flower Care

Flower beds need to have plenty of organic mulch to help them retain as much moisture as possible.

Give your flower beds plenty of water – the soil should be always moist but never soggy.

Your flower beds will also need to be fertilized quite regularly through the summer – at least every three or four weeks.

Dead head flowers to promote more bloom and new growth – pinch back any stems which are becoming leggy.

You may need to water newly planted flowers more than once per day until they become established and settled in the flower bed.

Tree Care

Trees also need lots of fertilizer to encourage rapid growth during the summer, especially citrus fruit trees, deciduous fruit trees and desert trees.

When you water these trees make sure that they have plenty of water to around 3 inches of depth.

If you want to plant any citrus, fruit or desert trees now is a good time to do it.

Summer Gardening Pests

The plants may be glad to see the summer but it is also the time when you have to be most vigilant against diseases and insects.

Keep an eye on your trees and shrubs for foliage which suddenly begins to wilt.

Branches which begin to die at the end (around 6 – 8 inches at the end) may be victims of the female cicada – she may have selected to lay her eggs. If you can see slash marks measuring around that’s probably the culprit – you can’t do anything to control it but the damage is usually pretty limited.

Prickly pear cactus is extremely susceptible to cochineal scale – white fluffy globs – blasting them off with water jets is usually sufficient to sort them out.

Summer is the time when most people can really enjoy their garden and following a few of these summer gardening tips will ensure that you have a beautiful garden to enjoy.

A Few Handy Summer Gardening Tips