Summer Garden Tips & Garden Tour – Garden Maintenance in the Summer

Keeping your garden thriving during the hottest months can be a challenge. These summer garden tips will help you keep plants healthy and productive.

From smart watering habits to protecting your soil, small changes make a big difference. Your garden can stay vibrant even in the heat with the right strategies.

Pests, weeds, and sun stress all cause garden problems as temperatures rise. Learning how to deal with these issues now can save time and frustration later.

This post shares practical advice for maintaining your garden through the summer. Use these summer garden tips to get better results all season long.

Keep reading to learn more about summer gardening. You can also enjoy a photo tour of my garden beds to demonstrate the tips below.

Summer garden tips

These tips will help you get the garden of your dreams!

Plant both early spring and summer bulbs

Early spring bulbs such as tulips, hyacinths, and daffodils give very early spring color, but when they finish flowering, you will need something that continues adding color. 

Ice plants are a good choice, since they are ablaze with color all summer long.  Gardenias, gladioli, liatris, and re-blooming daylilies give more color as they all get their turn in the sun.

The key to making sure that re-blooming bulbs do actually bloom again is to remove the spent flower stalks after the first round of flowers.

Ensure endless color with summer-blooming perennials

After the splendor that comes from early spring bulbs and the yellow blaze of my forsythia, a summer garden bed can look pretty ragged if you don’t ensure that you have something to take over.  

Summer blooming perennials do that job nicely. Lambs’ ears, daylilies, roses, baptisia, and canna lilies will fill up a semi-sunny bed and give color all summer long.

Be sure to deadhead flowers to encourage more blossoms.

Roses can keep a gardener busy all summer long.  If they are neglected, they won’t be beautiful for long.

Deadheading removes spent blooms and encourages plants to fill out with more flowers soon.

If you hate this job, be sure to check out these plants that don’t need deadheading.

Watering in the morning is most efficient.

Watering early in the morning prevents mildew and allows you to get the most out of the water that your garden beds receives

Planting heat-resistant and sun-loving plants in garden beds is important.

Roses, daylilies, red hot pokers, black eyed Susans, foxgloves, and other sun-loving plants are perfect for keeping a garden in full bloom.

A raised garden bed made from cement blocks can house a whole collection of succulents, as well as some annuals that get changed out as the summer progresses.

It makes a great focal point for any sunny area of the garden.

The positioning of plants matters a great deal.

Hostas are a popular shade garden plant. No matter how much you love them, they won’t do well if most of your summer garden beds get full summer sun.

It’s important to consider where you place plants like these.  

If you have garden beds that get limited sunlight, elephant ears, hostas, and heucheras grow beautifully.

Garden beds that are north-facing allow you to grow ferns, hydrangeas, bleeding heart, and other shade plants.

Follow these tips for lush green lawns

A new survey conducted by Harris Poll shows that Americans spend an average of 12 hours outside in their yards during the summer months.

A big part of that time can be spent tending lawns to make them look better. Are some of your favorite memories those that come from time spent outdoors with your family?  

If they are, having a healthy and lush green lawn is probably important to you. If your lawn is not in the best shape, here are a few things that you can do to help make your lawn the pride of your neighborhood.

Raking and aerating lawns

Doing this early in the spring will go a long way towards giving you the lush green lawn that everyone wants.  

These two tasks ensure that the debris and thatch from the winter are removed, allowing light and air to hit the soil to encourage good growth.

Watch the height of the mower bed

Be careful about how low you mow your lawn. Dry, brown, weed-infested lawns can be the result of cutting lawns too low.

Lower the bed on your mower early in the summer, but then raise it as the hot days start to roll around. Your lawns will thank you with their lush growth.

Edge your borders

Well-tended lawns need edges that are nicely trimmed to look good.  There are many edging methods. You can use plastic edging or bricks to give you a tidy line that can be trimmed easily.

Edging with plants works well, too, as does digging a trench around the garden bed to keep weeds away.  Liriope is a perennial plant that can edge a garden bed in a natural way.

This grass flowers in midsummer and adds a finished look to a garden bed.

Bring in the professionals for extra help and advice

Keeping lawns and a summer garden in good condition is a big job. Consider a professional to help take care of your lawn for you if it is more than you can do yourself.  

Mulch makes the job of weeding much easier

No one likes weeding, but it is a task that has to be kept on top of. Tackle the biggest part of the weeding job in early spring when it is cool, and then make sure that you have several inches of mulch in place to keep the weeds at bay.

Mulch makes the weeding job easier. In the summer, when the temperatures are hot and the weeds are actively growing, you’ll have fewer weeds if your beds are mulched.

Landscape cloth and cardboard between the plants and under the mulch also does a good job of keeping the weeds under control.

Seating areas add interest

Seating areas in garden beds allow you to enjoy your summer garden. They look great and are a wonderful place to relax and admire the fruits of your labor.

Position them under the shade of large trees if you can to ensure that there is shade when the temperatures heat up. 

They add so much charm to a garden bed.

Keep pots sool by positioning them on shady patios.

Potted plants are very beautiful, but they can get overheated easily.  Terracotta pots, in particular, attract the heat.  Light mulching helps, but the best trick is to keep them out of the direct sunshine.  

A front patio will keep the pots cool and add curb appeal to your home.

The key to a great-looking summer garden is early preparation.  Planning makes sure the hardest jobs are done early to allow you to spend your time enjoying the fruits of your labor.

Summer is the time for BBQs, outdoor parties with badminton games on a lush green lawn, and enjoying summer entertaining with friends. Will your gardens be in good shape for the summer activities? Put my tips in place and you, too, can have the garden of your dreams.

I hope you have enjoyed my photo garden tour and tips. I’d love to see some photos of your gardens uploaded to the comments below!

Share these summer garden tips on X

If you enjoyed these tips and my garden tour, why not share this article with a friend? Here is a post to get you started:

Keep your garden thriving in the heat! 🌞 Check out these smart summer garden tips to beat the stress and boost growth. 🌿 #GardeningTips #SummerGarden #GardenCare #LawnCare #TheGardeningCook Share on X

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Would you like a reminder of this post for gardening when it’s hot? Just pin this image to one of your gardening boards on Pinterest so that you can easily find it later.