Clouds, rain and silver linings
8 May 2012
Every cloud has a silver lining, the saying goes, and certainly the recent rains have meant there has been no need to water plants and that anyone with a water butt should now be well supplied for drier summer months.
But the variable weather has brought new challenges. Rain and clouds have cut light levels, leading to slow growth, while stinging frosts in early April resulted in plants getting off to a slow start. Also, nutrients have been washed too deep into the soil for young plants to access. Fortunately, this also affects weeds, which have not grown as quickly as usual for this time of year. And the cold and wet means that insect pests are also less active than expected in spring.
Expert advice
'On the face of it, things at the start of the growing season were good in the garden,' says Guy Barter, RHS Chief Horticultural Advisor. 'The dry and warm conditions in March were ideal for sowing, planting and maintaining lawns. But the wet April and now May has caused concern. What gardeners ideally need are conditions for good early root growth so that plants are able to seek out water throughout a dry summer. This hasn’t been happening.'
Despite recent rainfalls, water supplies in the longer term will remain tight and the RHS offers the following advice to help gardeners boost plant growth to survive any summer heat waves:
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Keep lawns from getting too unkempt by mowing as soon as it is dry enough for your mower to cope with it, taking off no more than a third of the grass each time until it is back to the right height.
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Remember that when the sun shines newly planted trees, shrubs and climbers will dry out faster than the surrounding soil so be ready to water these even if the soil seems moist.
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Many plants will look yellow as nutrients are washed below the root level. This should be temporary, but applying foliar feeds to green up plants is useful in severe cases.