Love Your Garden star David Domoney informed This Morning viewers today (July 12) how to keep their gardens happy this summer. This week, Britain is experiencing sweltering temperatures, with the hottest weather yet to come.
The Met Office has warned that Sunday, July 17, will potentially see record-breaking weather. An amber warning for extreme heat has been issued by the weather organisation, which has asked Britons to check in on their elderly and vulnerable loved ones during the scorching period.
With the UK struggling to keep cool, some of those with green thumbs are worrying about their garden as lawns turn brown and some plants start to crisp up. To help the gardens of Britain get through the summer, Mr Domoney has shared some very useful advice with keen gardeners.
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Appearing on This Morning from his garden in Stratford-upon-Avon, David advised viewers to ensure that their plants stay 'looking beautiful', and make sure that the creatures that visit our gardens are 'getting plenty of water', before sharing some tips to help them do so. Sometimes, homeowners are unsure on what they should water, and what they should leave.
Mr Domoney told viewers: "Just need to be clear, you don’t need to water everything. Your lawn, if it’s an established lawn - not if it’s new, if you’ve just put turf down or seed or something similar, you still need to water that - but an established lawn will recover pretty quickly. So you don’t need to waste a lot of water watering that.
"Just think of the parks or the school playing fields, they all go brown and then after a couple of rainfalls they come back again. Likewise, big trees are established shrubs, they’ve got a store of water and deep roots under the ground to be able to grab that extra water lower down.
"You only really need to focus on anything that you have recently planted, new plants that you put into the garden, you need to keep watering. Likewise, if you’re growing any food… vegetables and herbs and fruits that you’re growing for production still need to be well watered."
For thirsty plants, such as big-leafed pumpkin plants, David shared a helpful tip. When he takes the pot off of these plants, he usually plants the pot next to the plant so that, on hot days, he can fill the empty void of the pot with water, which then seeps out and deeply hydrates the plant.
He added: "If you have a couple of plants that have suffered from the dry, new plants you may have in the garden, don’t throw them away because they have a tendency to easily recover. You can identify whether it’s still dead or not by scraping away a bit of the bark. And as you can see, there’s still green underneath, this plant will grow back."
When plants have dried up, but still have some greenery on them, David implores garden owners to utilise the 'dunking' method. He explained: "Where you’ve got a plant that’s dried and you put it straight into a bucket of water, see the bubbles coming out, and you wait until all the bubbles have gone and then lift it out and that plant is properly hydrated, and you leave that to stand. Make sure it doesn’t dry out, and it should come back to normal again."
Although many people rely on sprinklers in the hot weather, David says that the 'most effective' way to water your plants is with a good old-fashioned watering can. Sprinklers can spray water all over your patio, rather than on your plants.
David said: "I usually use a trigger gun so I can water, go onto the next plant, and it’s not on in between watering so I’m not wasting any water on the patio. It’s going straight onto the plant.
"The best time to water is first thing in the morning, or around about 7 o’clock in the evening so there's still enough time for the excess water that's on the patio to dry off, so slugs don't use the water to get to your plants.
"Always remember to keep your house plants watered as well, you can get this stuff here called capillary matting and it holds a lot of water. So I cut a little saucerful of that, put it into the pot, and stand the plant because it holds extra moisture and the plant’s compost will suck it up as it grows."
David also advised viewers to add mulch to their borders, as long as it is peat-free, to support the moisture within. When it comes to helping the wildlife in your garden, David said that buying your average, cheap gardening saucers can actually go a long way.
He said: "They’re just normal saucers, I put a few stones at the side but that’s for the bees that come in my garden and the butterflies so if they fall in the water, they can easily get back out again. Or they can land on the side here and have a little drink."
David also showed that he had a number of watering stations in his garden, including a little bowl on stilts which he had spiked into the soil for birds and insects to fly to and drink from. Supplying birds with food is also a very helpful thing to do - further information on how to support the wildlife visiting your garden can be found on the RSPB's website, David said.
The garden expert also said that rainfall can be very deceiving, and even after a seemingly big, heavy rainfall, you can be surprised at how little rain actually fell if you collect it. The Love Your Garden star said that he often leaves a cup out in the garden, to tell him how much rain has fallen overnight.
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