{"id":13767,"date":"2015-07-15T00:01:04","date_gmt":"2015-07-15T07:01:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/?p=13767"},"modified":"2015-06-30T00:41:22","modified_gmt":"2015-06-30T07:41:22","slug":"garden-problems-caused-by-heavy-rain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/gardening\/pests-problems\/garden-problems-caused-by-heavy-rain\/","title":{"rendered":"Garden Problems Caused by Heavy Rain"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Wet summer gardens are something the UK gardeners are having to contend with for the first time in a long time. For St Swithin&#8217;s Day I thought I would review the summer so far and provide some tips and ideas in case the wet weather continues.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Extreme garden flood by johnpaulgoguen, on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/johnpaulgoguen\/3490105090\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.staticflickr.com\/3609\/3490105090_94e1697c04.jpg\" alt=\"Extreme garden flood\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h3>Garden Problems Caused by Heavy Rain<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>One off heavy rain runs off before the soil gets a chance to soak through. That is not the problem when rain is as continuous as this year.<\/li>\n<li>Heavy rain can damage young growth with the force of the rain. If rain is accompanied by wind the driving rain can do even more damage.<\/li>\n<li>Rain washes out some of the goodness from the soil and deprives plants of good fertiliser.<\/li>\n<li>Waterlogging of your soil can drown the roots of plants.<\/li>\n<li>Needless to say wet gardens attract <a href=\"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/gardening\/pests-problems\/slug-and-snail-tips\/\">snails and slugs<\/a>. (The prize for the largest exhibit at many garden shows may be a big fat slug this year!)<\/li>\n<li>Lush growth has been put on by hedges and plants that would normally stay quite small.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a title=\"Garden flood 2 by Chris &amp; Angela Pye, on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/pyepics\/3635444002\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.staticflickr.com\/3658\/3635444002_ebb6bdc958.jpg\" alt=\"Garden flood 2\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h3>Tips and Ideas for Wet Gardens<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>My runner beans have grown tall but have very little leaf. I have pinched out the tops to encourage growth and flowers lower down.<\/li>\n<li>I am adding some granular fertiliser for beans and plants that I would normally have given a liquid feed.<\/li>\n<li>Use the lush conditions by planting more leaf crops whilst there is still time.<\/li>\n<li>Put gravel around the neck of plants, such as succulents,that may rot if the soil is too wet.<\/li>\n<li>Check potted plants and containers to see they are not waterlogged or stood in water. Raise them on bricks if needs be.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Encourage Flowering<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>If you garden for colour and flowers you may suffer most in heavy rain.<\/li>\n<li>Deadhead asap and do not let buds get soggy and start to rot.<\/li>\n<li>Feed with a high potash fertiliser<\/li>\n<li>Prune excessive leaf growth or top out plants that are growing tall and wide at the expense of flowers.<\/li>\n<li>Give plants access to as much sun as possible.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a title=\"Flooded Garden (2) by Roger Lynn, on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/rogerlynn\/442895256\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm1.staticflickr.com\/203\/442895256_4af14bd3f5.jpg\" alt=\"Flooded Garden (2)\" width=\"500\" height=\"378\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><em><br \/>\nPhoto Credits<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Extreme garden flood by johnpaulgoguen CC BY-NC 2.0<br \/>\nGarden flood 2 by Chris &amp; Angela Pye CC BY-NC-SA 2.0<br \/>\nFlooded Garden (2) by Roger Lynn CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 &#8216;Happy April Fool&#8217;s Day! another Photoshop creation using the incredibly fun &#8220;Flood&#8221; plugin by Flaming Pear<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Problems caused by heavy rain  are something the UK gardener is having to contend with for the first time in a long time. For St Swithin&#8217;s Day I thought I would review the summer so far and provide some tips and ideas in case the wet weather continues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gardening","category-pests-problems"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13767\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}