Keeping Your Summer Garden in Tip Top Condition

Kiwi’s love spending time outdoors in their summer garden, whether it’s in a chair under a tree, on the deck under an umbrella or on the lawn having a picnic! To help keep your summer garden in great condition, we’ve got together a collection of our top tips.

How to Keep Your Summer Garden Looking Great 

In the summer garden, setting aside a few hours each week for maintenance jobs will keep it looking fabulous. We suggest you:

• Keep dead heading your roses and other blooms to ensure they remain looking beautiful
  
  
• Be sure to water your plants regularly either early morning or evening to prevent things drying out quickly. Take a look through our water savings ideas for some great ways to cut down your garden usage.
  
  
• Look out for pests in your garden, because the warmer weather does make them multiple faster, aphids, scale and stink bugs especially! Our article on garden pests and how to treat them is a handy read.
  
  
• Mulch any new trees or shrubs you have planted, such as that gorgeous Olive tree you received for Christmas!
  
  
• Pick your early pip and stone fruit as they ripen. You may need to check now and do some light pruning of your fruit trees to let the sun reach the fruit better.
  
  
• Nourish your trees and plants with a liquid fertiliser, helping give them a boost through this busy growing season
  
  
• Keep an eye out for plants that are heat stressed and create shelter for them using garden cloth if required. Heat stress looks like wilted, brown or rolled leaves, blistered or discoloured fruit and fruit dropping
  
  
• Dig out those weeds as soon as you see them popping up. They have the uncanny ability to thrive in almost any condition or care!
  
  
• Mask up when using potting mix when planting up your hanging baskets or herb pots. Legionnaires’ bacteria thrive in warm moist bags of potting mix and compost

Finally, if you are planting out trees during summer, make sure that the holes you are putting them in are well watered and contain mulch to help welcome the roots. Plant in the late afternoon or early evening to avoid unnecessary heat stress to your gorgeous trees.