What to Plant in July on the Dacha: Experts Share Their Tips

If you didn't have enough time to work on your dacha in spring (this year's spring was stressful for everyone for known reasons), there is still time to make up for lost ground — at least, to get familiar with the decorative side of things.

We asked professionals to tell us what and how to plant in July so that the results please you now and in the coming months.

In the garden, on flower beds, near the house

Irina Lukyanova, Landscape Designer. More than 15 years of experience creating and implementing greening projects for private and urban areas in Moscow and the Moscow region.

Designing a mobile container garden or a plant wall

"To get colorful, eye-catching flower beds in a short time, it's too late to work with seeds: you need seedlings," explains the designer.

We buy and plant perennials already flowering or with buds, otherwise plants will take a long time to establish and may not bloom this year, only growing green mass.

Design: Elena Bykova

Annuals or summer flowers we buy in pots or trays, also flowering. Summer flowers are the ideal choice for quickly creating a beautiful flower bed: they bloom and look decorative all summer until late autumn, unlike perennials whose blooming period is not as long.

For a quick transformation of the dacha plot, Irina recommends setting up a mobile container garden or plant wall.

What plants are suitable?

Effectively looking varieties of sedge, petunias, pelargoniums, coleus, begonias, lobelias, aliums, dichondra, marigolds and other summer flowers. You can compose them yourself or buy ready-made arrangements.

For a mobile garden composition, include perennials as well — sedums, lavender, grasses and even shrubs like hydrangea. If it's a plant wall, add indoor plants that grow well in summer and outdoors, such as chlorophytum and ivy.

Recipe for a ready-made flowering composition for a flower bed or mixboard: to keep the flower bed colorful at different times and have plants gradually replace each other in bloom, assemble a composition of various types of sedum, heuchera, catmint, mini rose (floribunda or tea-hybrid), and niwaki.

These plants will bloom in July–August. For autumn blooming, we recommend adding bush astilbe to the flower bed.

How to properly carry out planting?

All perennial herbaceous plants should be bought in pots with a formed root system, and try not to damage it during transplanting.

It is better to cut the flowers off immediately after they fade, not waiting for seeds to ripen: this is needed for better plant establishment.

Be prepared that in the first year after planting, plants will not bloom as abundantly as in the following year, when they have fully established.

Annuals after planting develop well, quickly form new buds and bloom for a long time.

Planting in July is best done in the morning or evening. Prepare the soil in advance so that the plants you bring do not stand in the sun for a long time. Watering is very important. It is better to mulch the soil with pine bark or larch bark right away to retain moisture: it is usually hot in this month. This procedure also prevents weed growth.
Design: Irina Lukyanova

How to choose planters?

Priority should be given to large-sized models: this way, flower compositions will be voluminous and you will have the opportunity to use many plants. If you plan to add perennials and shrubs, you will need to insulate the planters to protect plants from winter frost or transplant them into the ground for the winter.

"Choose planters with automatic watering to control moisture levels, and for plant wall modules, install drip irrigation," recommends Irina.

Design: Irina Lukyanova

Composition of tuberous begonia, coleus, and ivy.

Composition of tuberous begonia, coleus, and ivy.

Composition of everblooming begonia, coleus, and geranium.

Where to place ready-made compositions?

Place planters throughout the garden and at the entrance to the house, on terraces, balconies, and verandas. You can leave them outdoors until late autumn, then decorate them with evergreen plants for the New Year.

A plant wall can be placed at the entrance to the house or on the fence, decorate a pergola or gazebo.

Design: Evgenia Russo

Enhancing flower beds with plants

If in July flower beds or mixboards are not lush and colorful enough, it's not too late to add more plants.

Irina recommends focusing on perennials in pots that handle transplanting well: "Lilies, astilbes, niwaki, hostas, sedums, grasses, decorative sedge — the least demanding ones".

Design: Julia Namestnikova

These can also be compact shrubs: spiraea, astilbe, cotoneaster, spherical thuja, juniper, cushion pines — all must be grown in pots with a well-formed root system.

To help shrubs better withstand planting, treat them in advance with root growth stimulants such as "Kornevina" or "Heteroauxin".

However, if you don't mind updating the flower bed annually, you can also add annuals to it.

Design: Bevan Associates

Sowing seeds of perennials for blooming next year

In June–early July, sow or renew the seeds of forget-me-nots, anemones, and marguerites — they will bloom next spring, as well as Turkish carnation (blooms the following summer). These perennials are also used for planting in planters.

In July, sow the seeds of biennials such as foxglove, stock roses, medium bellflower, night-flowering jasmine, and leucojum.

Design: Azara Landscapes

Planting shrubs and trees (but only if necessary)

"Mid-summer is not a typical time for planting saplings, but if there is an urgent need, choose container-grown plants, shrubs and trees with a dense root system to ensure the plant survives the planting," says Irina.

Before planting, it's important to treat the plant with "Kornevina" or "Heteroauxin", and spray the crown with an "Epin" solution to reduce stress during transplanting and boost immunity. After planting, water abundantly plus sprinkle the crown with water: water the branches and leaves in a scattered flow.

Design: Bret Achtenhagen's Seasonal Services

In the vegetable garden

Zinaida Kurchevskaya, Agronomist, Dacha Enthusiast

Usually gardeners finish planting by mid-June, but some vegetables are even better planted twice per season: for example, the autumn harvest of beet and carrot planted in July will keep much longer during winter than the summer harvest.

In July, you can still plant radish, daikon, cucumber, corn, and legumes like snap beans and early cabbage. Spinach, onions, lettuce, arugula, and other salad vegetables can also be planted every two weeks to always have fresh greens on the table.

Design: Eugene Garden Design

Planting vegetables in July is almost the same as spring planting, the main thing is to choose summer varieties: they better withstand heat. Any complex fertilizers will work.

If you don't plan to plant anything else in the vegetable garden, I would recommend sowing beds with nailwort or pansies: these flowers will help restore the soil's microbiota for a good harvest next year, and the beds will also look beautiful and colorful. Pansies, by the way, are planted together with cabbage to repel pests.

Design: Mariani Landscape