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The Fernwood Almanac

July in the garden in the Fernwood Almanac, Ludlow, Shropshire

Hot, dry, and the month the watering can decides how August looks. Prune wisteria for the second time and trim lavender the day the flowers fade.

PlateThe lavender walk in full scent, July
In flower

In the nursery and in a garden within about ten miles of Ludlow.

What is out in July

  • Lavender Lavandula angustifoliaThe walk is at its best in the first fortnight.
  • Agapanthus Agapanthus africanusFlowers best when the pot is far too small for it.
  • Phlox Phlox paniculataScent at dusk, which is when you are out there anyway.
  • Coneflower Echinacea purpureaLeave the seed heads up all winter. Goldfinches.
  • Hydrangea Hydrangea macrophyllaBlue on our soil, pink on the limestone eight miles east.
  • Sweet pea Lathyrus odoratusPick every other day or it stops. That is not a threat, it is botany.
Planting calendar

Written for the Marches, where the last frost is usually the middle of May and the first is usually the end of October.

Jobs for July

Prune

  • Wisteria, summer cut: this year's long whippy growth back to five or six leaves.
  • Trained apples and pears, once the base of the new growth has gone woody.
  • Lavender, as the flowers fade, into green growth only. Never into bare wood.

Take cuttings

  • Semi-ripe cuttings of lavender, rosemary, hebe and box.

Water

  • Early morning or after eight in the evening. Anything in between mostly evaporates.
  • Containers daily in a dry spell, and check the ones under the eaves twice.

Keep picking

  • Sweet peas, beans, courgettes. All three stop producing the moment you let one go over.
On the benches

What we have in during July

  • Lavender, in flower
  • Late-summer perennials: rudbeckia, helenium, echinacea
  • Alpines and drought-tolerant planting
  • Autumn-sowing seed
  • Water butts and irrigation kits

Stock turns over with the calendar. If you are after something specific, ring on 01584 555 0234 before you drive over and we will walk out and look.

From the nursery

A note on this month

Lavender that has gone woody and bare in the middle was cut too late, or cut into old wood. Trim it the week the flowers brown, take it back into the soft green only, and it will be a dome rather than a doughnut for fifteen years.

Tom Wray, Nursery manager
What's on

Annual fixtures, so the dates move by a day or two but the months do not.

Around this time of year