Seasonal Garden Tips

In the border:Water and feed borders and pots frequently, as well as any newly planted shrubs and perennials.Keep on top of weeding.Continue to deadhead plants and cut back perennials after flowering.Pot up any self-sown seedlings.Save seed from ripening seed pods.Clip lavenders back to just above woody older flower stems.Cut back all new pyracantha growth just beyond the berries to expose them and tidy up the plant.Give beech, hornbeam and thuja hedges their second trim later in the month.Take notes and pictures of your borders to remind yourself of areas that need reworking for next year and where gaps appear that need some annuals to add interest during late summer.

Lawns:Mow regularly but don't water or feed.

Vegetable garden and greenhouse:There is still time to sow early carrots, peas, hardy lettuce, rocket, spring cabbages. They can be covered in fleece when frosts threaten in a month or so.Prune gooseberries, redcurrant and blackcurrant bushes and summer fruiting raspberry canes once all fruit has been picked. Prune cordon-trained apple and pear trees and fan-trained fruit trees.Increase feeding of tomatoes and remove any bottom leaves that turn yellow.

email: sally@shdesign.go-plus.net