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Enjoy the bounty of high summer
This is often one of the hottest months of the year and a great time to sit out and enjoy your garden. Keep plants looking good by regularly deadheading, and you’ll enjoy a longer display of blooms. Make sure you keep new plants watered, using collected rainwater or grey water where possible
JOBS FOR THE MONTH:
Fruit and veg
- Fruit and veg
- Check crops such as runner beans regularly for aphids, and rub or wash them off straight away, before they multiply
- Water thirsty plants such as celery, beans, peas, courgettes, pumpkins and tomatoes regularly
- Make the last pickings of rhubarb and remove any flower spikes that start to form, cutting right down at the base
- Thin out heavy crops of apples, pears and plums, and remove any malformed, damaged or undersized fruits
- Prune plum trees in dry weather, when silver leaf fungal disease is less prevalent
- Sow a last batch of peas and dwarf beans before mid-July for an autumn crop
- Shorten side shoots growing from the framework of trained fruit trees, reducing to about five leaves from their base
- Water fruit trees and bushes, then lay a thick mulch of garden compost around their base to hold in moisture
- Cover brassicas with fine netting to prevent cabbage white butterflies laying their eggs on the leaves
- Peg down strawberry runners into pots of compost to root new plants
- Pick courgettes regularly so they don’t turn into marrows
- Sow small batches of fast-maturing salad leaves, rocket and radishes every few weeks for continuous pickings
- Cut down broad beans after harvesting, but leave the roots in the soil to release nitrogen as they decompose
Flowers
- Cut lavender for drying, choosing newly opened flowers for the best fragrance, then hang up in a cool, dark place
- Give dahlias a liquid feed, keep them well watered and tie the shoots of tall varieties to sturdy stakes as they grow
- Hoe and hand-weed borders often, so weeds don’t have time to set seed
- Water and feed sweet peas regularly, pick the flowers every few days, and remove seed pods to prolong flowering
- Plant autumn bulbs, including nerines, colchicums and sternbergia, in pots and borders
- Feed, water and deadhead summer bedding regularly, in pots, borders and hanging baskets
- Cut back early summer perennials, such as hardy geraniums and delphiniums, after flowering for a second flush
- Take softwood cuttings from shrubs such as pyracantha, cotinus, hydrangeas and spiraea
- Feed and deadhead roses to keep them flowering strongly
- Keep watch for pests such as lily beetles, snails, aphids and vine weevils, and remove before they do too much harm
- Pick off flowers on coleus plants to maintain their colourful leaves
- Sow biennials, such as foxgloves, honesty, forget-me-nots and wallflowers, for blooms next year
