JUNE GARDENING TIPS

June is a magical time in the garden, where the gradual process of tending and nurturing plants transforms into a vibrant explosion. In your outside space, you’ll find that fruit is ripe for picking, flowers are in full, glorious bloom, and every corner is teeming with energy. This month, the hard work of Spring pays off, making June a favourite for gardeners everywhere. As you enjoy the beauty of your garden, remember to tackle this month’s essential tasks to keep it flourishing.

Here are our tips for making the most of the month ahead:

– Fill gaps in beds and borders with long flowering summer bedding plants like Osteospermum and Cosmos. We have these and others in our garden centre.

Keep on top of weed growth by hoeing weed seedlings regularly. Hand pull annual weeds and use a hand fork to dig out perennial ones so you get all the roots.

– If any of your vegetable seedlings failed, you may want to plant young plants ready to plant from our garden centre to fill in your gaps. You can also still sow vegetable seeds like salad leaves and annual herbs like dill and coriander.

– Regularly pinch out sideshoots on cordon tomatoes and make sure the main stem is well supported.

– Pay attention to watering as the weather warms, particularly for any newly planted trees and shrubs as well as emerging seedlings.

– Plant focus: Cistus (Rock Roses). Generally preferring a more mediterranean setting, Cistus have delicate tissue-paper like flowers and they love sunny positions, perfect for your driest site. Apart from Cistus, closely related shrubs like Halimium perform equally as well but are a little more sensitive to cold winds. These plants are perfect for planting out in the garden growing to about 2 ft in height.

– Put up codling moth traps in apple trees and plum fruit moth traps in plum trees to avoid maggots invading your fruit.

– Add lawn clippings to compost in small amounts, mix with other straw like material so your compost doesn’t get too soggy.

– Liquid feed your plants in containers – following the directions (and dilution) on the packet.
Protect Lillies, Delphiniums and Hostas from slugs and snails.

– Cut Oriental Poppies back to ground level after flowering, new foliage should follow.
Continue planting out or sowing runner and French Beans.

– Protect soft fruit from birds by using netting.

– Use gaps between brassicas to sow quick growing radishes and salad leaf crops.

– During the summer you can mow your lawn once a week but mow part shaded lawns less often as they grow slower. Never mow after it has rained as you will compact the soil. Apply a Spring/Summer feed to lawns if they loose vigour following the instructions on the packet. If you have newly laid your lawn, feed and water to aid establishing but don’t over water and avoid using the new lawn while it establishes.

– Hopefully we will see some sunshine this Summer but with that comes the risk of hosepipe bans! Invest in a rainwater butt and collect water from your roof to use in your garden.