King Charles’ senior gardener Jack Stooks’ must-do jobs for July to keep your garden looking its best

Summer has arrived and July is prime time for spending time in your garden, which means you’ll want to keep it in great shape. However, busy lifestyles mean knowing where to start when it comes to keeping your outdoor space looking its best, can feel overwhelming.

Knowing what jobs to prioritise and even what jobs actually need doing right now is a bit of a minefield - especially for people early on in their cultivating journey. But fear not, help is at hand.

Seeking expert advice from a leading gardener, we have some July tips from none other than King Charles’ senior gardener, Jack Stooks. According to him, there’s plenty to do when it comes to your outdoor space flourishing this month. 

To help you get the best out of your garden, the expert - who has worked in the Royal gardens at Highgrove for more than 20 years - has revealed his top tips when it comes to all things plants and maintenance.

Sharing his monthly checklist with Betway, he says that while now is the time to deadhead any of your flowers and plants in order to keep fresh ones coming, you also need to be feeding and watering your garden in the warmer weather to keep it looking its best.

Flowers and plants

“Now is the time to be doing any deadheading of plants,” Jack recommends. “If you have any annual plants, you want to keep those fresh flowers coming - you don’t want them to go to seed, as they won’t produce many flowers. If you are doing that, you also want to be giving the plants feed and water to keep them as healthy as possible.

July is also time for a spot of tidying, Jack suggests. He says: “Cutting back can be done now as well, so when you are looking at a border and things have gone too far over, you can trim those bits back.”

Maintaining your garden

Jack says mulching beds is an important job to get done now. He says: “If you are doing border work, this will keep the moisture in and suppress the weeds. Watering should obviously be done throughout July and we should look towards Autumn and what plants you might want to plant. Now is also a good time to be staking plants, any tall flower heads that you don’t want to lose you should stake those and tie them in.

“In hotter weather, you don’t need to cut your lawn as short as you normally would. For example, if you cut it into a three, you might want to take it up to a four or a five depending on how you like it to look. You can do it regularly but don’t scalp the grass, especially when it's dry, it can look a little bit yellow but it is nothing to worry about because it will come back. 

“If you have ponds and lakes in your garden, it’s a good time to be doing maintenance and clearing, if you have any big weeds that have grown you can clear those out to make space.”

Fruit and vegetables

As well as sharing his advice on plants, Jack touches on which fruit and vegetables to pick, and how to maintain your grass in the summer heat. “You want to start picking things that are growing in your garden,” He says.

“Right now, you might have courgettes or tomatoes that are coming up so you want to pick those. Any salad crops can be harvested now, and you want to constantly keep these cut because you will help the plant keep going. Any potatoes can be picked, as can runner beans, all the beets and any early raspberries.” 

House plants

Jack also has advice for those of us who like to bring a bit of the outdoors in. He says: “House plants shouldn’t need anything excessive. I would say carry on as normal unless there is an extreme temperature change and they start to wilt then you know to give them a little more attention and water.”