June is here, ushering in the vibrant season of summer! Flowers burst into colour, bees hum contentedly, and long daylight hours beckon you to spend more time outdoors. Let's make your garden flourish this season with our 15 essential June gardening tips!
- Bring on the blooms! Fill your pots and hanging baskets with summer bedding plants for a dazzling display of colour that lasts all season long. Geraniums with cascading trails, cheerful petunias, and delicate lobelias thrive in sunny spots. For shady areas, opt for the vibrant blooms of busy lizzies ( impatiens) and beautiful begonias. To keep your flowers flourishing, give them a boost every other week with a fertilizer rich in potash.
- Get your runner beans, French beans, squash, courgettes, and tomatoes ready for the outdoors by hardening them off and planting them in their permanent spots.
- For a steady stream of fresh salad all summer, sow small batches of lettuce, spinach, and arugula every few weeks.
- It's prime time to harvest your first early potatoes! You can test their size by carefully digging up one or two. If they're on the small side, simply leave them in the ground for a couple more weeks to plump up.
- Tomatoes thrive with a high-potassium feed every two weeks to boost fruit growth. This same feeding schedule works wonders for container-grown vegetables like dwarf beans and courgettes – tomato food is a multi-tasking champion!
- Garlic is ready to harvest when the lower leaves turn yellow and the tops begin to dry out and wither.
- Don't let the birds steal your bounty! Net your strawberries as they ripen for a delicious treat.
- For a continuous show of color all summer, deadhead your repeat-flowering roses and regularly pick sweet peas. This encourages them to produce more blooms!
- To encourage fresh foliage and another round of blooms, give your hardy geraniums a haircut once they're done flowering.
- Keep your lawn mowed, but adjust your routine during dry spells. Mow less frequently and raise the mower blade setting to help the grass cope with stress. Consider leaving a section of your lawn uncut to create a haven for insects and other friendly wildlife.
- Summer's warmth spurs weeds on, so stay ahead of them! On dry days, grab your Dutch hoe and give the soil a shallow scrape. This will target and chop down common annual weeds like spurge, chickweed, and hairy bittercress. Leave the severed weeds on the surface to dry out and die.
- It's time to give your wisteria its summer pruning. This involves cutting back all the long, thin shoots that grew this year to around 20cm in length.
- Maintain your evergreen hedges by trimming, but check for nesting birds beforehand.
- After flowering, prune summer-flowering shrubs like Philadelphus (mock orange), Weigela, and Forsythia. Cut back the flowered shoots to strong buds lower down. Remove one in every 3-4 old stems to encourage new growth.
- Water your garden early morning or evening to beat evaporation. Install a rain barrel to collect free, plant-loving rainwater!
Create your garden oasis. Find plants, supplies, and even comfy chairs at our Carpenters garden centre.
