7 Ways to Protect Your Garden from Extreme Heat | Summer Gardening Tips

Would you like 7 Ways to Protect Your Garden from Extreme Heat? I know I would!! We’re talking real-life tips like watering early and using mulch, to protecting yourself as the gardener. Whether you’re growing in Zone 8 or anywhere that gets sweltering summer weather, this laid-back garden chat will help you and your plants beat the heat.
My name is Nicole Roggeman, and My Carolina Garden is in Southeastern North Carolina in zone 8B.
#SummerGardening #ExtremeHeatGardening #Zone8Garden #MyCarolinaGarden

Number five is a huge one and it may be counterintuitive. Let’s talk about seven ways you can care for your garden in extreme heat because right now our gardens are going through it and so are we. Hi you guys, this is Nicole from My Carolina Garden. My garden is located in growing zone 8b and we are in southeastern North Carolina. Early morning is everything. I try to get out into the garden around 6:30 a.m. each day. I know. And it’s like you’re setting your alarm early or you’re taking your coffee out early, but we try to do this because once the heat really sets in, it makes everything feel so much worse. So, if we can start early, I’m out there watering as early as possible. If there are items that are not on my drip irrigation, I am out there deadheading. Um, I am out there seeing if there are pests coming onto my plants, all of that sort of thing. Now, I understand that those of us who live in the south don’t even get evenings that cool off at night. So, if my temperatures are in the triple digits during the day, I may be at 85° at best at night. So, it’s not that it’s glorious to even go out at 6:30 in the morning, but it’s before the sun is brutally up and shining on us and just like I said, making everything feel so much worse. And then with a little luck, we can get back inside before the heat really sets in. Now, look, our time may be limited at that early hour. However, little by little, a little becomes a lot. So, anything we can get done during that early time frame is just a win in my opinion. Number two, watering strategies. Watering becomes very tricky in this heat. If you are hand watering, try to aim for doing that in the early morning before the heat really sets in. But if possible, keep this in mind. Try to water just from the base of the plant. You’re trying to water the soil around them and not on the leaves. The idea here is to try to prevent like fungal disease from spreading on your plant. And as we recently talked about where the garden kind of gets attacked during times of high heat and high humidity, we want to try to keep those fungal diseases at a minimum. Obviously, I rely a lot on my drip irrigation system. And I have to say that that has really changed my life as a gardener. I went about 24 years of my gardening life without drip irrigation. we put it in last year and it has changed everything. It makes my life so much easier. Not just saving time, but also in my thoughts because I know my plants are being watered from the ground as I said and just not having to put that kind of labor in when it’s so brutally hot and humid just means the world. Of course, watering at night once everything has cooled off a bit, maybe the sun is not so blazing. That would also be a great idea if your plants are able to drink it up during the night time. So, if you don’t have the early morning time on your hands, try doing that and watering late in the evening. Number three, helping plants cope with the heat. One of the best things you can do for your gardens is mulch. Adding that layer of mulch, protecting that root system helps to hold moisture in, which first of all is excellent because we want them to be able to hold on to the water that we’re giving them when we’re watering, but also it tends to keep the soil cooler for your plants. So, definitely mulch. We’ve talked about it a lot. That is definitely a priority for me in my garden. Not only does it make the garden have a finished look in my opinion, but again, it’s a benefit holding in the cool temperatures and moisture. Also, if you have containers, check them out. You might want to move them into a little bit more of a protected or shadier spot if they’re getting too much sun. If you’re noticing the things in your containers are really wilting, slide them back. Just a little bit of protection can go a long way. Remember, we get to pop inside the house and be in the air conditioning. They don’t ever get that kind of a break. So, anything you can do can potentially go a very long way. Some plants are very sensitive to the heat and humidity. And in my case, I have been filling my garden up with caladiums and kolas. Both of these kinds of plants you will notice getting real saggy in the high heat. So, one of the things you can do if you notice this happening to these plants, if you can’t move them out of the way to give them a little bit of a break, you can give them a light watering in the daytime and help them to kind of get through this crazy midday heat with a little bit of spritz of water. Cool them off a little bit. Give them a little bit of a break. Air circulation matters, you guys. So, number four is air circulation. Now, in a way, it takes good garden planning to think in advance and say, I don’t want to plant my things too tightly together so that there’s no air flow around them or right up against the house, for example, where no air can get behind and around the plants. I have made the mistake of planting things too close together or too close to the house. My hydrangeas being one of my problem areas that I have shown you before, my hydrangeanger is suffering from black spot. And here’s the thing, poor air flow and high humidity is a perfect recipe for fungal disease. So that’s exactly what’s happening to my hydrangeanger. Air can’t get around it. I now have black spot on my hydrangeanger that I now have to treat. We just recently talked about plants that are very susceptible to these fungal diseases. We may say see things happening on our zenyas this time of year, on our cone flowers this time of year, and it stinks because then that’s another problem area that we have to put our effort into and we’re already dying from the heat. It’s funny because I often say that since I live right at the coast, we have a coastal breeze happening all the time. But for some reason, mother nature’s being a little bit mean to us right now. Not only are we not getting rain, so our forecast may call for rain, but then it never shows up, but we are not getting any coastal breeze whatsoever. So, I’m sitting here right now. You can see my hair is not moving an inch because I’m not getting a breeze. One of the things you can do, this might make you a crazy garden person, but it doesn’t matter. Put a fan in an area that you think needs better air circulation. If you need to run an extension cord with a fan out to that area, I don’t care if people think you look crazy. You’re trying to take care of your babies. So, sometimes adding supplemental airflow in that way is actually the way we get ourselves through this sticky situation. Number five is a huge one and it may be counterintuitive. Say no to fertilizer for now. When we see our plants struggling, it’s easy to be like, “Let me fertilize. give them some food. They probably want some more nutrients. But that’s the counterintuitive part. Our plants are already under severe stress with the heat and humidity. Adding fertilizers actually promoting new growth on our plants. They may not be strong enough to handle any sort of new growth. They’re just trying to survive at this point. So, let’s not push them even further. thinking we’re helping with fertilizer, thinking we’re feeding them or kind of giving them vitamins. No, hold off on the fertilizer for now. Wait until this time of deep stress is over and then you can jump back into your regular fertilizing routine. Number six, embrace the power of shade. Like right now, I am sitting on my front porch because it is one of the few places I actually have shade at this time of the day. And I will tell you that even sitting here in the shade, I am sweating because the humidity is so thick and outrageous. So imagine how your plants are feeling again without being able to move. They are just sitting right out in it. So embrace the power of shade. What can we do to add a little bit of again maybe unnatural shade if you will? What can you bring into the garden to allow shade? It can be maybe a patio umbrella. Heck, it may be like an old bed sheet or something. You just have to put from here to there to be able to cover an area and protect it temporarily. Now, again, we’re going to watch and make sure that we’re not protecting something in a negative way where air circulation becomes even worse and then, you know, we’re creating a fungal disease in this area. So, be careful what kind of shade you’re adding. But if there’s very intense sun and thick humidity, there are a lot of things like sail shades and things like that that we can add into an area that can maybe uplift if there’s any breeze and that sort of thing. A little bit of sun protection goes a long way because another thing we haven’t really talked about, we’re more interested in the actual temperature and the actual humidity and heat index, but sunscch is a real thing, too. So if the sun is super intense on a plant that doesn’t love it, like maybe some hostas are getting more sun than they would like, helping to prevent suncorch on the foliage of those tender plants is also a wonderful idea. So see what you can do or what you can play around with. And again, no one’s going to laugh at you because we are just protecting our gardens, our investments, our passion, our passion, our favorite places, our sanctuary. I could go on and on about all the things that my garden is to me. Number seven is listen to yourself and your garden. It is very very difficult for us who are the caretakers of our sanctuaries to let go and say I can’t get out there. It’s too much for me to work in this heat and humidity. I have to let the weeds grow. I have to let the dead heads be on the stems of all my plants because I’m not going to cut them off. It’s hard. It’s super hard. But this is your permission slip right now. I’m giving you this permission slip that says, “Hold off. It’s okay to let go for right now because we have to take care of ourselves, too.” And part of it is working out in this heat and humidity. Part of it is fitting these little is fitting the garden work into our schedules that are potentially very, very busy already. I know sometimes if I try to get out into the garden in the morning very early before I’m off to work for the day, I may potentially have to be taking my shower after that or I can’t wear any of the clothes that I’m going to wear for the day out in the morning because you know how it is with very very sweaty. Our gardens are supposed to fill us up and not drain us. And this is something that was quite easy to talk about in the winter time again when we were doing our greenhouse chats which were so lovely and I had such wonderful feedback from it was fabulous talking about it then but right now we are in it deep in it in the heat in the humidity in all of the gross that’s happening and it feels overwhelming. We’re tired. It’s exhausting working outside in this level of oppressive weather. So, don’t feel guilty if your spent blooms are sitting there. Don’t feel guilty if things are beginning to wilt and you just can’t get to them with your the hose and hand watering. We don’t want bugs to take over our gardens. Trust me, we don’t. But if you can’t get to the store and grab the neem oil and come home and spray everything that’s suffering, it’s okay. It is what it is. We can’t do everything. We are just trying our best. So, that’s it. Those are my seven ways to care for your garden in this extreme heat. It feels gross. I know a lot of us are commiserating on this subject, but we’re going to get through it because it can’t last forever. It can’t last forever. Please subscribe to my channel if you haven’t already and follow me on social media for more good good content. And until next time, you guys, happy planting.