July is one of the most rewarding months in the garden. Borders are bursting with colour, vegetables are cropping heavily, and long sunny days mean there’s plenty to enjoy outdoors. While everything is growing at full speed, a little regular maintenance will keep your garden looking its best throughout the summer. Here are our top gardening jobs for July.
15 Gardening Jobs for July
- Sow biennials such as wallflowers, honesty and foxgloves now for beautiful flowers next spring and early summer.
- Keep cutting flowers from roses, cosmos, sweet peas, daylilies and dahlias. Regular deadheading or picking blooms for the house encourages even more flowers throughout the season. For more ideas on adding long-lasting colour, see our top 10 summer bedding plants guide.
- Trim back faded perennials including hardy geraniums and delphiniums to encourage fresh foliage and, in many cases, a second flush of blooms.
- Lift and divide bearded irises once flowering has finished. Replant rhizomes so they sit partially exposed to the sun, which helps them thrive.
- July is the ideal month to prune wisteria. Cut this year’s long whippy shoots back to around five or six leaves from the main framework.
- Continue sowing lettuce little and often for a steady supply of fresh salad leaves. In hot weather, plant salad crops somewhere with afternoon shade to help prevent bolting.
- Water pots and containers regularly during dry spells. Tomatoes especially benefit from consistent watering, as sudden heavy watering after dry periods can cause fruits to split.
- Flowering and fruiting plants such as tomatoes, beans, peppers, courgettes, blueberries and gooseberries will benefit from feeding every couple of weeks with a high-potash liquid fertiliser.
- Remove side shoots from cordon tomato plants by pinching out the small shoots that develop between the main stem and side branches. This helps direct energy into fruit production.
- Pinch out the tips of broad bean plants once pods begin to form. This encourages bushier plants and can help reduce blackfly problems.
- Earth up maincrop potatoes to stop sunlight reaching the tubers, which can turn them green and inedible. Early potatoes may be ready to harvest this month, but it’s worth checking a few first before lifting the whole crop.
- Harvest beans and courgettes regularly once they begin cropping. Frequent picking encourages plants to keep producing through summer.
- Prune stone fruit trees such as peaches, plums, cherries and apricots while they are still in leaf to reduce the risk of silver leaf disease.
- Plant autumn-flowering bulbs like nerines and colchicums this month to add colour later in the year when summer displays begin to fade.
- Lawns grow quickly during July, so mow regularly to keep them tidy. During hot, dry weather, raise the mower height slightly and cut less often to avoid stressing the grass.
At Carpenters Nursery, you’ll find a wide range of plants, gardening tools and seasonal essentials to help your garden thrive throughout the summer months.
