July in the Garden

In bygone days, gardeners would spend mid-winter poring over seed catalogues and planting bare-rooted roses and fruit trees sent to them by snail-mail or rail.
Nowadays, we spend time strolling through Greener Tidings in winter to buy what’s flowering and looking good!  It’s so much fresher walking around the garden centre!

Trend planting

The Pantone colour for 2017 is totally inspired by nature – refreshing, renewing and reviving green. Filling your house and patio with lacy ferns or Mother –in-laws tongue which are once again very fashionable, is definitely on trend! It is also said that ferns of all kinds clean the air and being surrounded by them, leaves one with a sense of well-being and calm. Stock up on your fern collection by adding the following easy-to-grow species: Maidenhair, (Adiantum) Rabbit’s Foot (Davallia), Holly Fern (Cyrtomium), Boston Fern (Nephrolepsis) and all the dainty varieties of Pteris.
Display them in bright light, away from cold drafts, keep their roots just moist, and feed regularly with a water soluble fertiliser.  

Lovely lavenders

Winter is lavender planting time and here’s a selection of the best lavenders for your garden:

• Lavandula Margeret Roberts – compact and bushy with small, grey-green leaves and long flower spikes in light purple.
• Lavandula dentata (toothed lavender) – spreading, bushy shrubs with scalloped foliage which are either dark green or grey depending on the variety. Fragrant, purple-blue flowers.
• Lavandula stoechas (french lavender) – numerous hybrids available of this compact bushy shrub with slender green leaves. Short spikes of purple or pink flowers topped with two colourful bracts looking like rabbit ears.

Bedding besties – Calendula

If you did not get around to planting Calendulas in March or April you can still get flowering plants on the seedling shelves. In winter, Calendula officinalis rubs shoulders with other popular winter annuals on the seedling tables. Calendula is frost-hardy, growing about 45cm high and 30cm wide. It produces brightly coloured yellow and orange daisies. Plant calendulas with dianthus, pansies and violas, or mix them in with giant red mustard, tatsoi, Swiss chard and lettuce. Use the petals to garnish salads, sandwiches and desserts.

Plant pelargonium power

Hybridizers all over the world have a great time playing around with our pelargonium species (also known as ‘geraniums’), and the results are showy and prolific varieties for containers or the garden. Start your collection now to ensure bright spring colour. Although they are easy to grow, water wise and quite tough, some gardeners experience problems. Here are some hints and tips to help you along:
• Full sun is best
• Pelargoniums hate wet feet and heavy, slow draining soil – in the garden or in pots. Use our Garden Tech potting mix for pots and condition garden soil with lots of compost;
• They are gross feeders and need feeding in the garden every four-six weeks with a slow releasing general fertiliser (Vigolonger works really well). Plants in pots should be fed monthly throughout the year with a water soluble fertiliser – work into the soil lightly – Multisol 3:1:6
• Wet leaves are easily subjected to disease infection and it is best to water at soil level.

Indoor plants

It’s cold outside, so brighten indoor spaces with vibrant, colourful indoor plants – bringing your gardening therapy inside. Winter-flowering house plants include cyclamens, Anthuriums, Peace lilies and Calandivas  and instantly add a warmer and welcoming touch to living and reception areas. They are also an excellent long lasting and value-for-money alternative to cut flowers.

Rose care for July

Rose pruning is done from the last week in July until the second week of August.. Gardeners who approach this task with trepidation can relax, as rose pruning is basically the removal of dead wood and weak and old twiggy stems, in order to attain a neat and pleasing shape, to open up space for new stems to grow, and to cut back to a desired height. After you have completed the pruning process, dig in the old mulch layer and freshly added compost into the soil around the bushes, feed with Roses 8:1:5, renew the layer of mulch afterwards and water deeply at soil level.

Window box farming 

To enable you to mix a mean Pimms cocktail, you need some homegrown fruit and greenery. Combine the following plants in wintry window box:
• Mint – there are different mint varieties available and you can use whichever you fancy. What you have to know about mint plants though, is that they can be quite robust and will try to overtake the container. Keep them in the small pots as grown in a nursery, and when you plant up your window box, simply sink them pot-and-all between the other stuff you’re going to plant out. This will stop them from overpowering the other plants.
• Kumquat – add a little kumquat tree. The small fruits formed in winter are colourful and tart, and will sit on the plant for ages and quite open and thin. This tree is truly frost hardy, as well as water wise and suitable for cold, windy gardens.

Pest watch

Ants and termites can also cause problems around the house as food and water becomes scarce. Drench your outside braai area/ under pots and in front of all the doors with Kombat Ants.
Crickets on the lawns are also quite common now – drench the areas with Cypermethrin. 

 General Garden Care 

• Keep on picking sweet peas, Iceland poppies and stocks to encourage the plants to continue flowering.
• Remove faded flowers from other winter-flowering annuals.
• Feed all winter-flowering annuals every two weeks with a foliar fertiliser – Multisol 3:1:6
• When pruning hydrangeas, cut back the stems which have flowered by about half, ensuring to cut above a thick round green bud. Remove all diseased, dead, or damaged growth.
• July is a great time to cut out all dead wood, diseased branches and leaves, cut back trees that are getting too big and perhaps shading out the lawn or obstructing your view. Remember that after pruning, plants need to be fed. Fertilise roses and fruit trees with a slow release fertiliser (Vigolonger). Roses and fruit trees will both love a dressing of kraal manure, worked into the soil around the plants.
• Feed citrus with 5:1:5 Vigorosa and water well.
• Don’t neglect the veggie garden! Water deeply weekly and feed with Bio-Ocean – Fantastic organic boost for this time of year
• Continue harvesting winter crops and sow late plantings of green peas.
• Protect cold-sensitive vegetables like lettuce, celery and parsley from winter frosts with frost cloth.

Happy Gardening !