Jobs for June

General gardening jobs:

• In the greenhouse: Open the door/ windows on hot days and spray the floor with water to ensure a damp atmosphere that will deter whitefly. Remember to close both at night as the nights can still be cold! If you haven’t already it’s time to grow tomatoes and cucumbers and sow some biennials – like Foxglove and Sweet William. It is still worth hardening off any plants grown in the greenhouse by putting them outside and bringing them back in for a week to help acclimatise them.

• If you are growing bedding plants in pots or hanging baskets it is best to mix multi-purpose compost with John Innes no.2 at a ratio of 2:1. This does increase the cost but modern multi-purpose composts tend to dry out quickly causing plants to die / stop flowering earlier in the current hot spell. Remember to mix both water retaining gel and plant feed with the compost before planting up.

• Dead head bedding plants regularly to keep them flowering.

• Place pots on saucers to catch any run off and save water.

• Keep on top of the weeding by hoeing/ hand weeding.

• Leave the blades on the mower a little higher during really hot weather. The grass is likely to be under stress and under a lot of feet! Keeping the grass little higher helps the lawn to cope better.

• In hot spells concentrate on watering pots/ hanging basket, veg and anything recently planted in the borders. Water in the morning and at night so that it does not evaporate in the hot weather. Give plants a thorough watering once a week than daily as it encourages the roots to go deeper into the soil and cope better with hot conditions.

• Prune any early flowering shrubs (e.g. Weigela, Exophora) and dead head roses by cutting them to the second left below the old flower.

• Cut early flowering perennials (Pulmonaria and Oriental Poppies) to near the ground after flowering.