The jobs we should be getting on with, or at least think about getting on with! Hot days, long warm evenings,  great for us... a struggle for our plants! • Early Summer • Mid Summer  • Late Summer When is it for you? Refer to 'The Seasons' link opposite. Ok to prune or will we need to water? Click the cloud!

Trees, Shrubs and Roses:

• During early Summer, carefully pinch off the flowers from Rhododendron, Azalea and Camellia as they fade. Remove suckers from your grafted plants such as hybrid roses. Remove and destroy blackspot infected leaves from your roses. Prune spring flowering shrubs as the flowers fade. Keep an eye out for weeds and prune evergreens; wait until the flowers fade from flowering evergreens such as Choisya ternata, (Mexican orange blossom) for example. Keep on a regular look-out for aphids; remove by wiping them off or spraying with water as soon as you notice them! Keep the soil moist around newly planted plants. Remain on weed patrol!
• Maintain soil moisture around newly planted plants during mid-summer. Finish pruning spring flowering shrubs as the flowers fade. Train climbers. Dead head repeat flowering hybrid roses and ensure there is a good air circulation around them and that the soil is moist and cool at their roots, (keep encroaching plants at bay, water and mulch). Remove and destroy blackspot infected leaves from your roses. Keep on regular look-out for aphids.
• Maintain soil moisture around newly planted plants. Clip to last years growth your lavenders, dead-head hybrid roses, cut back untidy Wisteria shoots and prune rambling roses. Remove suckers from your grafted plants and continue to remove and destroy blackspot infected leaves from your roses. Continue the regular look-out for aphids!

Herbaceous Perennials, Annuals and Bulbs:

• If required for summer bedding, remove spring bedding from their beds. Keep the hoe in regular use. Towards the end of early summer cut back hard, early flowering perennials such as geraniums when they look untidy and their main flowering flush fades. This encourages a neater habit and further flowering. Sow late summer annuals and biennials. Plant out your bedding (petunias, pelargonium, begonia etc.), providing late frosts are not predicted. When the leaves have turned yellow divide daffodils if required, pinch the growing tips of dahlias and support bearded iris. Keep the soil moist. Continue sowing biennials, such as forget-me-nots, wallflowers, Canterbury bells and sweet Williams.
• Apply a liquid seaweed fertilizer. Ensure perennials are kept moist. Dead-head annuals and pull out weeds if the bed is crowded. Plant autumn flowering bulbs. Divide irises and dead-head dahlias.
• Dead-head and weed as required. Check supports and keep soil moist.

The Lawn:

• Keep up the weekly mowing regime at summer levels. If the weather is very hot and dry raise the height of cut slightly.
• Keep up the weekly mowing regime at summer levels. In drought situations, raise the height of cut, remove the grass-box and cut the grass as and when you feel it needs it.
• Keep up the weekly mowing regime at summer levels. In drought situations, raise the height of cut, remove the grass-box and cut the grass as and when you feel it needs it.

Fruit and Vegetables:

• Continue successional sowings of lettuce, radish, spinach, carrots, peas, French beans, broccoli, cabbage, swede and turnip. If required sow runner beans towards mid - summer to provide a late crop. Keep the soil moist and control pests - particularly black aphids, (wash them off). Check your brassicas, particularly cabbages, for the eggs of the cabbage white butterfly. The eggs will be small yellow, cigar-shaped and on the leaf underside - if seen destroy them or remove the leaf and dispose. Plant out leeks, celery, outdoor tomatoes and cucumbers (ridge type), courgettes and marrows. Begin to earth up main - crop potatoes. If required thin top fruit (apples, pears, plums, peach and nectarine). Remove unwanted shoots from restricted fruit trees, (fan, espalier and cordons). If birds are a problem, net your soft fruit. Prune red and white currants.
• Continue successional sowings but conclude successional sowings of spinach, carrots, peas, French beans, broccoli and cabbage by the middle of mid summer. Lift shallots and leave to dry out before storing. Carefully dig up new potatoes. Apply fertilizer, particularly to tomatoes and cucumbers. Tie in tomatoes and remove side - shoots as required. Keep up the watering, aphid and cabbage white butterfly egg patrol! Tomatoes, cucumbers, celery, leeks, beans, courgettes and marrows in particular should not be allowed to dry out. Continue removing unwanted shoots from restricted fruit trees.
• Keep up the watering, aphid and cabbage white butterfly egg patrol and conclude successional sowings of lettuce, radish, swede and turnip. As you harvest, fork over the soil and remove weeds. Sow onions and carrots for winter use. Sow winter greens and cabbages for use in spring. Earth up celery and start to lift main crop potatoes. Prune as required your stone fruit trees, (plums, nectarine etc.) after harvesting the fruit. Cut out dead and diseased wood at the same time.

The Water Garden:

• Continue dividing the plants in boggy areas of in the pond margin. Keep on top of the blanket weed removing! If duck weed is a problem rake that out as well - better still keep it from getting into the pond in the first place! In new ponds; wash new plants thoroughly, particularly the crown and roots, before adding them into the pond. Plant new plants.
• Remove dead flowers or foliage to avoid polluting the pond water. Keep up with the blanket / duck weed removal. Thin rampant oxygenating plants by pulling them out with a rake. Continue planting aquatics if required.
• Conclude planting. Remove old flowers / foliage. Thin oxygenaters. Remove blanket weed.

Containers:

• Put out your hanging baskets now but avoid windy areas. The most important part of container gardening now is watering and feeding. Even if we have lots of rain you will still need to water your containers. Keep you're plants tidy by regularly pinching the tips or pruning straggly shoots. Check for aphids and fungal disease such as mildew and remove if noticed. Plant permanent plants such as shrubs or small trees.
• Water each evening if weather is hot and sunny. Continue keeping plants tidy and dead-head as required. If a container has dried-out the only way to replenish the moisture content is to plunge the whole container into a bowl of water. Ensure the surface around the plant is covered with water. Air bubbles should be noticed escaping from around the surface of the soil in the container. Wait for all the bubbles to stop. Lift the container, drain and place somewhere cool and shady. Leave it there for a few days to recover. Remove any withered leaves or flowers and place back into it’s normal position.
• Keep watering, feeding and dead-heading as required. Replace worn out bedding with fresh plants as and if required.