Almost every Melbourne garden is spring orientated. In these months the gardens come alive with gorgeous flowers and colours of all kinds. But it’s not spring anymore.
Summer has come and the excitement of Melbourne gardens has disappeared. Your Weeping Cherries are done. The newness of foliage on Japanese Maples has waned. All the blossoms on your Plums, Apricots, Almonds, Apples, you name it, are long gone with the wind. What’s left is dullness and dryness.
Or perhaps they have prioritised autumn colour, with plants that will light up with fiery colours but for now are just a plain green. We are here to turn that around. Now you don’t have to be in Melbourne to make use of these tips.
We’re going to chat about how you can make your garden flourish in the summer – both in terms of colour and in the health of your plants.
The first step to recovery is acceptance. Okay jokes, but the first step is to take stock of what your garden looks like currently.
Approach it like you were someone coming over for the first time, become critical with what you are seeing.
Are some of your plants looking dry and fried? If so, you can skip ahead to this part where we chat about how to fix that.
The next thing to look for is colour – can you find any? If not, here are some quick hot tips on how to fix that.
Choose plants with beautiful foliage. This is actually just a great tip for getting year round colour in the garden. These are your plants like Loropetalums (which comes in different shades), Iresine ‘Bloodleaf’, Ajuga ‘Burgundy Glow’, or Abelia ‘Kaleidoscope’.
Choose trees that flower in the summer such as Crepe Myrtles and Jacarandas. The fantastic thing about Crepe Myrtles is how many different colours you can get the flowers in – and even the foliage! Yep, you can choose between the classic green foliage or a dark purple. We’ve raved all about Crepe Myrtles in this article here.
The most obvious is to pick plants that flower in the summer – which is quite an extensive list.
Also so many of these plants are very cheap and easy to grow. These are your Geraniums, Impatiens, Mandevillas, Salvias, the list goes on. We’ve got an entire article dedicated on how to fill your summer garden with colour, check it out here.
Any of these plants will bring your garden to life in the summer.
The following step is to get an expert’s help, it will barely cost you anything at all. Our Garden Designs with Chris are free when you purchase your plants with us. Essentially, they’re free. You have the choice between a quick consult or a more in depth discussion. In both of these Chris will take into account your location, wants, climate, garden/house style and suitability of plants. This is a dynamic design where you get to contribute to the final look. Book your Free Garden Design here.
A bonus handy tip is to come into the nursery and just see what is literally flowering right now. Browse the aisle and take note of what is looking beautiful at this moment. You are more than welcome to ask any of our staff how much longer certain plants will flower for so you can know how much longer they will look beautiful in your garden for.
You can have it all – a garden that looks beautiful in every season. It’s just a matter of having the knack and knowledge to achieve that.
The heat has taken quite a toll on both of us humans and plants. Now most plants actually adore the heat, granted that they are watered properly. We do have a comprehensive article on how to water your garden properly, which you can find here.
But we know people are time poor, so we’ll recap the most important points here quickly.
Everyone in Melbourne right now should be watering their garden and feeding their plants with fertiliser.
What you want to do is get a Soaker Hose, unroll it and start slowly watering your plants. Drag it around your garden letting it water everything. What you want is slow water getting in deep.
A nifty trick for making your garden flourish is watering during the summer rain. Yes, we did say to water while it’s raining. But hear us out. Trees and most plants draw water from deep down in the soil and in the summer that soil tends to dry from deep down.
So regular watering just doesn’t get to that deep part of the soil. But when it’s raining and you start watering your plants, that water is going to get in nice and deep.
If your garden is particularly dry, then it’s a good idea to add some soil wetter before the rain comes and combine that with the watering and raining technique. Keep an eye on the forecast and when you see a rainy day come up give your garden some soil wetter, it can be even just 20 minutes before the rain hits. Your plants will LOVE you.
Or even if rain isn’t coming but your garden is looking very dried out, you can still use soil wetter to help get the water in efficiently and effectively.
A lot of pot plants are looking dry and fried around this time so if you are able to it’s a good idea to move them out of the hot sun into a spot that gets morning sunlight and afternoon shade.
To stop them from drying throughout the day put the pot in a shallow saucer filled with water.
A handy tip to revive a dry plant is the double soak method. How it works is you water your plant like normal, then go have a mug of tea or dinner (basically wait about 30 minutes) and then water it again. This helps the water get in nice and deep.
Surviving through summer takes a lot of energy out of plants, lots of things are happening like flowering, fruiting, and of course, the intense heat. If plants are looking a bit tired right now is a great time to be out fertilising.
Slow release fertiliser such as Osmocote is great for getting a good volume of nutrients into your plants. If your plants are looking really yellow and hungry then you should use that with a liquid fertiliser.
The trick with liquid fertiliser is to apply it in the early morning or late evening when the evaporation rate is low. Spray it over the whole plant including the leaves, bark and root.
What’s great about liquid fertiliser is that it is in the plant doing its magic within seconds. Whereas slow release fertiliser can take weeks to get to the whole part of the plant.
Liquid fertiliser is the short term answer and slow release fertiliser is the long term answer. Liquid fertiliser can be used on a weekly basis in summer.
With the hot days we’ve had, a lot of roses are looking fried. Here is how you un-fry them.
Give your roses a good trim and feed with liquid fertiliser. A good trim entails removing dead flowers, dried branches and foliage, to get back to some nice buds and foliage.
Doing this will mean that in early March you will get a rebirth of beautiful flowers that will last all the way until May.
One thing you can do wrong during this time is trimming back your hedges or topiaries really hard before upcoming hot days. This is because the leaves can actually get sunburnt. Instead do quite a light trim and be mindful of the weather forecast. Save your hard pruning for late February.
Another mistake people make is thinking that perennials like Catmint, Salvias and Gauras, have done their dash of flowering for the year. But they haven’t.
What you need to do is give them a good prune and feed and you’ll find that they will come back for a whole other flowering season. How exciting!
So there’s how to freshen up your garden for summer. If you’d like even more tips on garden design, check out our article How to Get Your Garden Ready For All Your Summer Events.
Feeling inspired to create your own garden, but want some expert advice? Try our one-on-one garden design service with Chris. Together you’ll come up with a selection of plants along with a layout plan that gives you the look you want, as well as being suitable for your local soil and conditions.
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