June Jobs in the Garden

June is a wonderful month, not just because I celebrate my birthday but because the garden is in full swing.  You can almost see plants growing right before your eyes.  The temperatures are on the increase and the days are long.  There is nothing more relaxing than pottering around the garden on a warm summers evening and taking a moment to admire your hard work.  Don’t spend too long admiring though there is still work to be done. Support individual flowers stems on tall perennials such as lilies and delphiniums using canes. Lift and divide congested clumps of primulas. Deadhead camellias and rhododendrons once they have finished flowering and feed with an liquid acid feed.  Water all over the foliage so it gets to work straight away. Continue to tie in climbers - honeysuckle, climbing roses, clematis. Prune early summer flowering shrubs once they have finished flowering.  These include philadelphus, deutzia, weigela, exochorda, lilac. Deadhead, this is a nice job for one of those balmy nights wandering around your garden with secateurs in hand.  Remove the spent flowers from lupins, roses, iris to name but a few. Pick your sweet pea flowers daily if you can, the more you pick the more you get and in my mind you can never have too many. Finish planting out summer bedding and remember to water it. Take lavender cuttings, this is always worth it as lavenders really don’t last that long before they get leggy and need replacing. Cut pulmonarias down to the ground and feed with a liquid feed, this will promote lots of fresh new foliage.