Hello Everyone. July is one of my favourite months.  Most of the perennials are in flower and Dahlias are starting to come into flower so while  its time to sit back and enjoy the garden there are some jobs you will need to do. Regular deadheading and tidying up the hanging baskets will encourage a longer flowering season plus don’t forget to feed every 2 weeks. The lawn should be looking green and healthy. My lawn was looking a bit tired after all the visitors and developed yellow patches but it’s now back to normal after a dressing of Aftercut and the recent heavy rain.

Pests and Diseases

Check houseplants for aphids and whitefly, easily identified by a cloud of white ‘flecks’ that fly up when you move a plant or inspect it. The leaves of house plants are also vulnerable to red spider mite if conditions are too dry, so spray as necessary.

Outdoors, the usual pests such as backfly and aphids will be troublesome especially on chrysanthemums.

Various caterpillars will hatching-out now so check the leaves of plants and handpick them off (wearing gloves) or spray with insecticide.

The N.G.S. garden open days were a huge success which saw a steady stream of people visiting the  3 Maghull gardens the total collected was over £2000. (£2360 amount collected less £400 for prostate research and a further £150 donated by A. Pritchard making a total of £550 for prostate research  at Clatterbridge –  the remainder going to N.G.S.for Macmillan Nurses.  For those who were unable to visit my garden I am hoping to re-open in a month or two for U3A –  dates to be announced.