This is a busy month in your garden, with lots to do, from working on the lawn to planting bedding for more Summer colour, deadheading is an important job as well, doing this will produce more and more flowers throughout the flowering season. So here are some hints and tips for your garden for June.

June is the month to plant up all your hanging baskets and garden pots and urns. There are some lovely plants that will make a great display for the Summer. There are lots of flowers that can be used, take a visit to the garden centre now that the frosts have gone. When planting try to use the biggest pot/basket you can, otherwise you will have to water constantly or you will have dead plants and wasted a lot of money. When planting mix some granular fertiliser into the soil, this will last about 1 month but will take about two weeks to get started, this will allow your newly planted summer plants to establish. Around six weeks later you will need to start the weekly/fortnightly feeding to give you a full flush of flowers. Keep them well watered, this may be a daily event if the weather is really good.

That Long grassed area which has been planted with daffodils can be mown down now. But don’t cut it too short in one go, do half this week and the rest next, the grass will recover better and you then can keep it short for the rest of the summer. Now your lawns can be kept quite short but if there is a very dry spell leave them a week before cutting again. Once a month, leave the cuttings on the lawn, this will give them an extra feed.

Start to spray your roses with diluted washing up liquid, a dash of lemon juice  and tea tree oil, this will certainly get rid of those green and black fly. Inspect your flowers weekly if you can, deadheading as you go. Deadheading (Removing the almost dead and dead flowers) will allow the plant to redirect its energy to grow new flowers, so the more you do, the more you get!!

Nasturtiums do alot better in really poor soil, or you will get lots of leaves and very little flowers, use spent compost for these if they are to go into pots. 
Sweet Peas grow flowers on longer stems if you train them to grow horizontally, Once again the more you pick the more you get. So enjoy them in your home.

Give the Rhododendrons, camellias, and other Acid loving plants a watering but use Rain water and an acid loving plant fertiliser, this will boost them up for next year. During the Summer if they are looking a bit poor give them some rain water and another feed.  They will pick up pretty quickly.

Keep patio pots well watered, especially if they contain thirsty plants like cannas or Bananas. It may be best to stand the pots in a saucer so they get a longer drink every time you water.

Take flowers into your home, Roses, Dahlias and Sweet Peas look Fab with loads of foliage. But all flowers will bring a smile to your face as you know you have grown them!!

This early this month the tradition of the Chelsea flower chop will benefit your garden and keep your perennials compact.

Chopping back perennials in late-spring will make bushier plants that flower later on in the season and often flower more prolifically. Known as the Chelsea chop, it is carried out in late May early June, soon after the famous flower show has finished.

To do this, cut or pinch back plants by half. Sedum, Rudbeckia, Echinacea, Heleniums and golden rod will all respond well to this technique.

The majority of flowers bloom and set seed, a natural climax to the growth cycle. Deadheading flowers as they fade not only tidies up the plant, but it interrupts this sequence and stimulates new flowers to appear.

Deadhead fading flowers of bedding plants, annuals and herbaceous perennials regularly to stimulate new blooms and prevent plants from self-seeding.

With Lupins, Foxgloves, Delphiniums and Verbascum as soon as the flowers begin to fade, completely remove spent spikes to their base or nearest bud.

This technique also prevents unwanted self-seeding of many perennials. Simply snap off the dead flower with your thumb and forefinger.

Try it on summer bedding plants and annual and biennial flowers, such as Calendula, Godetia and Pansies.

If your garden is too much for you or too daunting, bring in an expert, we do this with our eyes closed and we enjoy every minute of it.