During the hot summer months, it can be difficult to keep the plants in your garden healthy, hydrated, and strong. Fortunately, there are several ways to keep your plants cool and properly hydrated. When the sun's beaming down, protect your garden by providing adequate moisture and shade. Read further to know 10  important things you can do to keep your plants protected during the summer months.

1.  Water your plants in the morning. During those hot summer months, it’s best to water your garden in the early morning before the sun starts beating down. If you wait until midday or even early afternoon, most of the water will likely evaporate before it travels to the plants’ roots. If you can’t water your plants in the morning, the early evening is another good time to water.
2. Use a light mulch. Adding mulch to your garden will keep the soil protected from direct sun exposure and, as a result, allow the soil to stay moist for longer. You can use many different forms of mulch, but you’ll probably have the best results with a light-colored mulch, such as dried grass clippings, because it’ll reflect the sunlight. Use bark mulch around your shrubs. Wood mulch is great because it will shade the soil from the sun and break down over time, adding compost to your soil.
3. Use shade covers. You can either buy a shade cover or cloth from a local garden center, or you can make your own. Old sheets, old window screens, or narrow panels of wood lattice can all effectively cover and cool the plants in your garden. However, make sure that the cover is kept at least several inches above the plants.If using a cloth cover, staple each end to stakes placed on either side of the garden. Ideally, covers should block about 50% of the sunlight.                                             
4. Avoid over-watering your garden. Heat and sun exposure can cause transpiration on your overwatered plants, which can lead to leaf wilt. Additionally, when plants are watered too much, the excessive moisture in the soil can cause bacteria to develop, oxygen to be in short supply, and ultimately create fungal disease. Resist the urge to water your plants too much when it’s really hot outside.Your plants only really need to be watered if the soil is dry. To prevent overwatering, touch the soil to make sure it’s dry before you decide to water the garden.
5. Weed your garden regularly. Pesky weeds that infest your garden can soak up all the water, leaving little for the plants in your garden that you want to keep nourished and hydrated. Weed your garden once a week for the best results, or twice a month at the bare minimum.
6. Still waters run deep Prevent water from stagnating, whether on the soil or pots and trays. Standing water can pave the way for a mosquito infestation in addition to giving your beloved plants an H2O overdose.
7. Plants can be friends too. Bigger, sturdier plants can often help to provide shade for smaller and more delicate greens. Consider it a buddy system for your garden, and plan the arrangement of trees with this strategy in mind.
8. Don’t re-pot during a heat wave. You shouldn’t choose a 100+ degree day as the perfect moment to re-pot that root-bound ficus (or any other plant for that matter). Why? Leaves always get damaged during re-potting (and in fact, proper re-potting often involves trimming away a lot of the root mass). Re-potting will cause your plant to get a bit stressed (even though it’s important plant maintenance in the long run) and this added stress could cause it to fail during the heat.
9. Don’t fertilize during a heat wave. Though fertilizer is your friend, especially during summer, a stressed plant should never be fertilized until it recovers. When your plant is in summer survival mode, it’s not looking for extra nutrients and isn’t prepared to make use of them. Introducing these into the soil will risk further stressing your plant. Wait until it cools down a bit for your next feeding!
10. Learn to recognize stress. Last but certainly not least, being ready to catch problems early is key to stopping them before they take hold and ravage your indoor plants. Common signs of stress to keep in mind for summer plant care usually have to do with too much heat and too little water.

• Tropical plants, especially those with tender leaves, usually wilt with exposure to too much heat.
• Foliage that was once bright green may look pale when stressed.
• Sunburn manifests in a variety of ways, but often looks like a rough brown or yellow patch on leaves/stems.
• Flowers (and leaves) often drop off or yellow when a plant is stressed.

 All of these are available at our store.

Harith Tharang is a decade old plant boutique that aims to spread love, positivity & greenery by means of the nature's gift - plants  ; sells a variety of indoor , outdoor, medicinal, biowall plants , plant medicines,  gardening tool, green gifts and so on.  The shop also provides services in developing house gardens, terrace gardens, balcony gardens, kitchen gardens, terrariums and professional maintenance of gardens. The retail store located at 42, Bazullah Road, T.Nagar, Ch-600017,  has a very unique theme of being ecologically friendly, innovative and elegant & offers many innovative products to consumers. It is a one stop, go-to store for all garden lovers. Call 9600120351 to know more details!