July is usually a sunny, warm time of year, and plenty of fruit and vegetables grow in the garden. With all the sunshine and warmth, there’ll be a lot to do! Read our list of gardening jobs to make sure you’ve got everything covered this season.
Lawn Care
Looking after your lawn in the summer is really important to ensure it doesn’t dry out or suffer in the heat.
Chafer Grubs — These larvae hatch around this time of year and can cause big problems for your turf. You might notice discoloured grass through to completely churned up turf as animals like birds, hedgehogs and foxes hunt for the grubs. If you spot chafer grubs, get in touch with a Greensleeves expert who will be able to perform a treatment.
Red Thread — Keep an eye out for this fungus on your grass at this time of year, particularly if a period of rain is followed by sunshine. It can really ruin the look of the grass, but a red thread fungus treatment will return your lawn back to full health.
Watering — When it’s hot and dry, it’s important to water your lawn to prevent it from drying out, becoming discoloured and even dying completely in severe dry weather. Read our guide to watering your lawn!
Flowers
July is a time for lots of flowers! Keep picking them to encourage new growth and use them to decorate your home.
Lavender — Can be cut and dried. For the best fragrance, choose newly opened flowers and hang them someone cool and dark.
Sweet peas — need watering daily (unless it rains!). Keep picking the flowers to encourage new growth and remove the seed pods.
Roses — Feed roses and deadhead old flowers to keep the plant flowering throughout the summer months.
Weeding — Keep weeding borders by hand to ensure they don’t suddenly become overrun.
Autumn Bulbs — can be planted now, including nerines, sternbergia and other bulbs for flowers in the next season.
Sow biennial flowers — like foxgloves, forget-me-nots, honesty and wallflowers.
Fruit and Vegetables
There’s plenty of harvesting to be done at this time of year, and be sure to keep your fruit and vegetable plants watered.
Courgettes and marrows — Courgettes need picking frequently to prevent them from becoming marrows. If you do want to grow marrows, removing other flower heads will help the plant put more energy into growing large marrows.
Aphids — Check your plants, like runner beans, regularly for aphids and if you spot them immediately wash them off.
Watering — Keep watering plants during dry periods to keep them healthy and prevent drying out, including pumpkins, tomatoes, celery and beans.
Apples, Pears and Plums — If trees are showing heavy crops, thin them out to encourage the rest of the fruit to grow bigger. Remove malformed, damaged or undersized fruits.
Peas and Beans — The last batch of peas and dwarf beans can still be sown for a mid-autumn harvest.
Fruit Trees — also need to be watered. Mulch them around the base to hold the moisture in.
Net Brassicas — like cabbages to prevent cabbage white butterflies laying their eggs on them.
Tomatoes — can be fed every week or two to encourage fruiting. They need to be kept well watered too! High-potash tomato feed can also be used for cucumbers and chillies.
Harvest — nectarines, peaches, apricots and raspberries.
Other Jobs
Greenhouses — can be aired out on warm days by opening the windows, vents or doors. They should also be dampened down when it’s hot to increase humidity by wetting surfaces early in the day.
Clear Pond Weed — to ensure that sunlight and oxygen can reach down into the water.
Top up — bird baths and ponds might need topping up with water when it’s hot and dry to keep them from drying up.
Clean houseplants — big leafed house plants can be taken outside and hosed down to clean dust and dirt from their leaves.
Keep your garden looking fantastic this July by reading our July gardening jobs. If you’re looking for professional lawn care, then get in touch with Greensleeves! We have a summer treatment that will help you to look after your lawn this season.
