How to Help Your Garden Beat the Heat

Help Your Garden to Beat the Heat. It’s midsummer, and even here in the Pacific Northwest, it’s been a scorcher!. Here are some tips that anyone can use, in any part of the country, to help their garden live and thrive when the mercury soars:

Weed, mulch, and move. You’ll want at least a 1-2″ layer of mulch in your beds, and especially around the base of shrubs, to help keep the moisture in the soil from evaporating too quickly. A helpful technique, particularly if you have a large yard with multiple beds, is to weed, mulch, and move. Pull weeds in one bed or medium size area, add mulch, and move on. This way, you can carve out a couple of hours here and there to work on your yard, and it doesn’t have to be an exhausting all-weekend production in one shot. This method also gives you a the sense of completion and success each time your finish a small area, and you get to enjoy how pretty each section looks as you do it, which may even motivate you to keep at it!
Prune your shrubs. This includes the dead branches, any blooms and leaves that have died, and those sucker sprouts that come up around the base of the plant. A well-pruned shrub will be a healthier shrub, as all the moisture and nutrients will go to the healthy parts.
Plant trees and vines. For areas of your yard where the sun is hottest, a great long-term cooling-off strategy is to create shade. Plant a tree or trees, or strategically locate a trellis or arbor with climbing flowers or a leafy vine. A grape arbor is worth considering too, both for shade and for its fruit!
Water early in the morning and at night. This one you may already know, but it’s worth repeating. Watering the garden in the middle of the day is basically worthless, because the water will evaporate before it can do your plants any good. It is also best to water long and deep, so your plants have a chance to absorb all of it.
Move your container garden. The nice thing about container gardening is that it is portable! During a heat wave, move those potted plants to a shadier area of the yard or to a porch. When it cools off, move them back.

Follow these simple tips and you can help your garden to beat the heat and thrive all season long!