How often to water the garden?

[Sunshine49]

Hi everyone, complete novice/first-time gardener here!

I have a relatively large garden in south London with two long flower beds either side. The soil is presumably clay and is very dry and cracked-looking in appearance. I’m worrying it will have an adverse impact on my plants. How often do you think I need to be watering the beds to ensure my plants stay alive, especially given that it’s been such a dry June so far? How often do you water your plants in the summer?

Thanks!

I've a load of plants and three trees that only got planted in the last couple of weeks, so they're all getting watered religiously every evening. The pots get done every third evening or so; they don't seem to dry out as fast, for some reason.

The whole garden is loving this weather. It's lovely to see everything growing so enthusiastically : )

Thank you Tells everyone and Mellow ,short fresh grass clippings ok on beds .
Dried grass clippings ok slightly thicker on beds .

@TellsEveryoneRealFacts

I have found that sometimes ‘piling it on’
has produced mould situations on my flowerbeds which looked pretty gross haha!

I have found that sometimes ‘piling it on’ has produced mould situations on my flowerbeds which looked pretty gross haha!

That is the natural composting process and will go away pretty quickly. It happens when a volume of green matter is all dying at the same time, the mould kick starts the process of composting. There is no reason to not pile it on and piling it on is better around a plant that has just been watered as it keeps the moisture in.

Yes I totally agree with you @TellsEveryoneRealFacts. I was just advising on previous experience (mouldy grass clippings caused a problem in my perennial flowerbed previously and I lost a few plants) and this was advice I was given by a landscape gardener and haven’t had the same problem since. My grass clippings may of had some other ‘unhealthy fungus’ growing in it that caused the problem but I wouldn’t want to risk it again.