Baytree Garden Centre’s top tips for enjoying your outdoor area this summer
This week’s Out in the Garden column looks at how to enjoy the fruits of your labour in the garden...
Last week was the annual Cox pilgrimage to Cornwall in our caravan. One fun filled week consisting of sun, sea and surfing, now obviously for those of you that read this article regularly will understand that I was of course the best surfer amongst the group. Poise, balance and physical fitness are three words that I would use to describe myself plus I own a wooden bead neckless, standard issue for any champion surfer.
Personally, I think the board I’d hired for the week was warped as it was impossible to stand on - and the youth who’d loaned me said board required an interpreter as every other word was ‘stoked’ or ‘dude’.
After a week of number one daughter and the present Mrs Cox laughing at me and my warped board I was thankful to return home. Though on the long journey back from the tip of the country a familiar growing sense of dread enveloped me, what would the garden look like?
To my great delight the automatic irrigation system I had set up before heading off to cultures new did a great job of watering my lawn and keeping my container plants moist whilst away. So instead of having to work really hard to get the garden back into shape and tripping over hosepipes and watering cans I was able to enjoy some time just pottering about in the garden on dry land.
One of my favourite pottering tasks is to simply do the above, except I also dead headed my roses and other flowering plants. I did notice that whilst my containers where irrigated whilst I was away on holiday, they had become dry, not worryingly dry but dry none the less.
A good tip would be to dampen down the outside of your un-glazed terracotta pots and containers. Un-glazed terracotta pots whilst beautiful to look at have a habit of wicking moisture away from the soil. If you place a hand against one of these pots on a warm summer’s day, you’ll feel that the pot is very warm, and because terracotta pots are usually quite large this means that they have a sizable surface area in which to evaporate the soils water.
For the time being watering should be the main priority. If you can, try to use grey water instead of tap water as at this time of the year water consumption increases and so does the risk of a hosepipe ban, so wherever possible try to use water that you have captured yourself. Getting a water butt is a great way to collect and store free rainwater for use in the garden. I’m quite fortunate that I have a well in my garden which is fed by several underground soak away pipes.
August in the garden is all about enjoying the fruits of your labour from earlier in the year. It is harvest time for strawberries, raspberries and currants plus many other soft fruits. You can really taste the sun in them, and best of all you know exactly where they have come from.
Most people will have finished planting their summer bedding. However, that doesn’t mean that the work is over. Regularly dead heading your bedding plants will encourage new flowers and stronger growth plus you lengthen the display of colour in your garden into early autumn.
If you have a greenhouse, make sure you open the doors or vents during the day and close them again at night to regulate the temperature and to encourage a good flow of air through the greenhouse.
I’m off now to contact the team from BBC’s Rip Off Britain. I’m sure that they would be very interested in doing an exposé on how surf shops are hiring warped surf boards!
