Flowers

• Deadhead flowers of lady's mantle before they set seed
• Water camellias to make sure they don't dry out while the flower buds are developing
• Buy bulbs for autumn planting including tulips, narcissus, alliums, iris and crocus
• Take cuttings from tender perennials and bedding plants
• Collect seed from any flowers you fancy propagating
• Trap earwigs among dahlias with upside-down pots stuffed with straw and balanced on canes
• Pick leaves off plants affected by rose blackspot
• Trim conifer hedges and evergreen hedges, cutting their tops back to the desired height
• Clear bedding that has passed its best and plant out forget-me-nots and wallflowers
• Tidy up fading perennials and make compost with the trimmings

Fruit and Vegetables

• Pick plums as they ripen
• Ease onions from the soil with a fork to prepare them for harvesting
• Finish pruning trained forms of apple trees like cordons, espaliers and fans
• Water crops regularly, especially during hot weather
• Lift marrows into the sunshine and rest them on bricks to ripen
• Identify plants showing symptoms of potato blight, and immediately remove affected leaves and stems
• Order garlic bulbs and onion sets for autumn planting
• Prune out fruited canes on summer-cropping raspberries
• Net blackberries and autumn-fruiting raspberries
• Veg to sow now include swedes, spring cabbages, beetroot for leaves, winter lettuces, radishes, coriander, Japanese onions

Greenhouse

• Plant prepared hyacinth bulbs in special hyacinth vases (available at garden centres) or in pots of bulb fibre
• Sow parsley in modular trays
• Water crops in growing bags and pots
• Open vents each day, but close them at night if the weather turns cold
• Place poinsettias in the total dark for 14 hours a day to encourage colourful bracts to form, moving into full light for the rest of the day
• Water indoor cyclamen after their summer rest to encourage new growth
• Plant lachenalia and veltheimia bulbs
• Pick off the lower leaves from tomatoes to allow light and air to reach the fruits

Generaly

• Pick off leaves infected by rose blackspot or rose rust, and dispose of them in your dustbin and not on the compost heap
• Set up an automatic watering system with a drip nozzle for potted plants if you're going on holiday
• Top up water levels in ponds and aquatic features
• Scoop water weed from ponds with a small net
• Remove suckers from roses or around the base of trees
• Summer prune wisteria by shortening all long sideshoots
• Stake dahlias and late-flowering chrysanthemums
• Trim privet, laurel, conifers and other hedges
• Mow lawns every week
• Apply lawn feed to promote strong root growth and prepare the grass for winter

Happy Gardening

Andrew