Green Fingers

Water - The heat is on! The Barbeque summer is in full swing, water is in short supply and the garden is gasping for a drink. Watering can be a bit of a chore, but you don’t have to water the whole garden and you don’t have to do it every day. Focus your watering on key areas.

The first thing to suffer will be the lawn – probably brown and crisp by now. At least you don’t have to cut it as much. You really don’t have to spend time watering this, as grass has dormant buds which will go green again quite quickly when it rains, so save yourself the effort.

Plants in containers need watering frequently. Stand them in the shade to stop them drying out as fast, and put saucers underneath to hold excess water. My neighbour has containers of plants set up under all his hanging baskets, so when the water drips out of the bottom of the baskets, it goes straight into the containers. Clever!

Any new planting has to be a priority, as far as watering is concerned. By ‘new’, I mean anything that has been planted in the last six months and even as long ago as last autumn. Root systems won’t be very big yet, so they won’t be able to find much water in the soil. To water new plants properly, you need to soak the plant thoroughly, rather than just sprinkling the bed.

A good way to do this is to make a bank of earth around the plant and water in the basin, which you form. The water cannot then spread all over the rest of the bed, and soaks down directly to the plant roots. Another good idea is to sink an empty flowerpot in the ground next to the new plant, with the top of the pot at soil level.

Fill the pot with water and the water will drain out of the holes in the bottom of the pot, again to water the roots.

Don’t water in the middle of the day. It’s too hot to stand there with the sun beating down for a start. Water droplets on plant leaves also act as a magnifying glass and create brown scorch marks. Watering early in the morning or late at night gives the plants longer to soak up the water, before it evaporates.

Re-use washing up water on the garden. It’s better to tip it onto the beds than into container plants, where there may be a build up of chemicals from the washing up liquid. Obviously water containing bleach or disinfectant designed to kill 99% of household germs, is also going to kill 99% of garden plants!

As soon as it has rained, and the garden is good and moist, mulch the soil thickly. You can buy bark chippings, cocoa shell and spent mushroom compost – all cheaper in a bulk 1 cubic metre bag than the sacks from the garden centre. The mulch should be at least 5cm deep, and will also save time on weeding.

Talking of weeds, any which are in the garden will be happily guzzling up the water needed by the plants that you have put there. A quick hoe early in the morning to uproot them, and you can leave there corpses to fry in the heat of the day.

With that happy thought in mind, retire to the shade to water yourself, with a cool drink!

For an insight into the life of a garden designer, and seasonal gardening tips, follow Linda on Twitter at www.twitter.com/potandplot

The author Linda Regel runs a garden design, coaching and consultancy business, Green. Telephone 01344 844320 or visit www.greengardendesign.co.uk/blog