New plants need plenty of tender loving care to give them the very best start in your garden. Here’s Isola Garden Design’s top tips on how to care for your new plants.
Watering
Newly planted areas are vulnerable to drought-stress as their roots are not yet established and do not spread out as far as mature plants to seek out moisture. The typical British wet weather can be your ally when it comes to watering. However, during the summer months, it is imperative to water your plants thoroughly, daily, ideally in the early morning to avoid evaporation loss during the day.
Allow the water to sink into the soil and then water again until the soil is thoroughly moistened. Generous infrequent watering is more effective than frequent light watering.
Deadheading
Most plants become unattractive as flowers fade, spoiling the overall appearance of beds, borders and containers. Regular deadheading keeps your garden looking neat and tidy, as well as helping your plants to direct energy into stronger growth and more flowers. Use finger and thumb to pinch or snap off each dead head where it joins the stem, or secateurs to cut just below the flower head. Avoid damaging buds or developing growths immediately below the flower.
Weeding
We recommend using premium quality topsoil and bark mulch on your newly planted borders to keep weeds at bay, but the growth of these unwelcome garden guests is inevitable and unavoidable over time. With time and patience, you can keep on top of weeds by regular weeding using a trowel or hoe, and a little-and-often approach. We would also recommend repeating the mulching process every spring or autumn to deter weeds from thriving.
Pruning
Careful pruning involves cutting off parts of a plant to improve its shape and encourage new growth. The Royal Horticultural Society offers advice on when and how to prune specific plants.
Here at Isola we want to make looking after your garden as easy and enjoyable as possible, so we’ve put together some seasonal posts to help you with spring opening, summer and autumn shutdown, we hope you’ll find them useful.
If you’d like to have a chat with us about how you could transform your garden, please get in touch, we’re always ready to say “hello”.