Keep Summer Flowers Looking Their Best - For Longer
, by John Clowes
Cottage garden favourites such as roses, rudbeckia, hollyhocks and snapdragons are blooming well and providing colour throughout the garden.
Summer flowering shrubs such as philadelphus, jasmine and weigela will benefit if you cut back flowering shoots to strong new growth immediately after all the flowers have faded. Encouraging new growth like this will ensure the plant carries flowers all over the plant instead of just at the top. To give these shrubs the energy to produce plenty of flower bearing stems, I dress around the roots with a plant food that’s controlled release – this will supply all the major nutrients over the next six months to ensure good sturdy growth.
As the Summer progresses I ensure regular watering of my flowering bedding plants, the ideal is a thorough water once a week, rather than dribbles little and often. To do the feeding job quickly use a Miracle-Gro LiquaFeed Feeder, by feeding you’ll encourage deeper roots that need less watering.
Give extra water and plant food to ever-hungry dahlias. My gardening tip is to alternate weekly feeds between Miracle-Gro and Tomorite – you’ll see they bloom with extra vigour!
Dead-heading roses grown for flowers and not for hips will encourage a further flush of blooms later in the year. I simply snap off the dead head without removing any leaves – the traditional way of using secateurs to cut back the stem at the same time has been proven to reduce the number of blooms.
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