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Get this offerJuly sees the garden full of flowers and looking at its best. There's plenty to do to keep the display going and to enjoy great crops, including harvesting veg at its peak and feeding the lawn. Let the Which? Gardening experts help you.
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For many of us the lawn is the centrepiece to the garden that sets off everything else.
Try a Best Buy lawn feed
Ponds and other water features also need some care in July and August to keep them healthy and looking good.
Anything you’ve planted in the past few months will need regular watering while it puts out roots into the surrounding soil and establishes itself. Make sure that you give these plants a thorough soaking rather than a gentle sprinkle.
Discover our Best Buy garden hoses and spray guns
If your greenhouse is in a sunny spot, it can quickly get too hot on sunny days. Put shading material or paint with shading paint to reduce the temperature inside.
Find out how to buy the best greenhouse
Try to maintain a green/brown balance in the compost heap. Green materials are soft, high in nitrogen and not necessarily green in colour, for example coffee grounds, veg peelings and leafy prunings. Brown materials are often drier, more fibrous and with a higher carbon content, for example, twigs, cardboard and wood (but not coal) ash. In the summer, most ingredients are green, which results in compost heaps with a lack of structure and air being squeezed out, so it’s important to add an equal proportion of brown ingredients.
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Get this offerThere are lots of veg that can be sown now to fill gaps as earlier crops are cleared and to give fresh veg into the autumn and winter.
Use a Best Buy compost for sowing seeds
Different types of veg need different ways of watering.
Try a Best Buy hose
In about the middle of July, watch for when about two thirds of onion tops are falling over, then push the rest down to soften the neck as sometimes they can develop a long stem and a neck that doesn’t dry very well. You don’t need to wait until the tops go yellow before lifting, but you’re looking for the bulbs to begin to change colour.
Pull them up and put them in a crate without being crowded so that air can circulate around them. Put it somewhere undercover such as in the greenhouse or garage.
Allowing them to dry like this is important as they will store better. Done this way they should keep until spring.
After they’ve dried in the crates for about a month, they’ll be ready to bunch up and hang in the house or in net bags until you need them.
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Now we're in July, some plants are just past their peak.
Discover our Best Buy watering cans
Give roses a boost as the first flush of flowers fades by feeding them with arose food. Gently hoe it into the soil around the plant and water in.
Learn how to grow roses
Stop tall perennials falling over in the wind by staking them. Put a cane in at the back, tie the string to it then loop it around the outer stems of the plant before returning to the cane and tying it in.
Lily beetles are at their peak in July as many new adults emerge. Watch out for the red adult beetles and the black grubs, both of which will eat your lily leaves and flowers. Our trial found that removing lily beetles by hand is just as good as using our Best Buy chemical control, Westland Resolva Bug Killer.
Try our Best Buy lily varieties