Gardening Jobs For June

Gardening in June just feels different, doesn’t it? Flowers are blooming, fruit is forming, and borders are bursting into life. But while everything might look lush, there’s still plenty to be getting on with. Longer days and warmer weather make June an ideal time to sow, grow, tidy and tweak your outdoor space to keep it at its best.

In this month’s guide, we’ll walk you through the essential gardening jobs to tackle in June. From sowing seeds for next year’s colour and giving your containers a summer boost, to keeping hanging baskets healthy and getting the most from your kitchen garden. It’s all about giving your plants the care they need to thrive.

Make New Life With Cuttings!

June is the perfect time to take softwood cuttings from many varieties of shrubs, such as Lavender, Fuchsias, Philadelphus and Forsythia. Collect healthy shoots from the tips of plants and make 5-10cm long cuttings – slice through the stem below a pair of leaves and remove the lower set of leaves. Push into a small pot filled with cutting compost and place on a windowsill propagator until rooted.

A Tidy Garden is a Happy Garden

Rejuvenate congested clumps of bearded Iris. After flowering, carefully lift with a fork and divide the rhizome with a knife to make lots of new pieces – cut the fan of leaves at an angle, roughly 6in from the root, and replant individual pieces around 6in apart.

Check Hollyhocks for disfiguring rust disease. If the upper sides of the leaves are discoloured, and the undersides are dotted with tiny orange, raised lumps, you need to act now. Start by picking off the worst affected leaves, then spray the plants with a suitable fungicide.

Remove suckers from the bases of trees and roses. These vigorous shoots grow from the roots or from underground stems and can eventually take over the whole plant. Snap them off with your fingers or snip back with secateurs as close to their point of origin as possible.

Prune Deutzia and other May-flowering shrubs as blooms start to fade.

It’s Time For Flower Power

Witness a mass of fragrant wallflowers and Sweet Williams next spring and summer by starting to sow the respective seeds now. These plants are biennials, so will each make plenty of leaves this year, before flowering next year.

Prevent spent flower heads of Lupins, Delphiniums and other early flowering perennials from turning to seed by cutting them back to a set of leaves with secateurs. Aside from resulting in tidier plants, this will also encourage a second flush of flowers later in the growing season.

Tie up the stems of Sweet Peas, as this is the time when many plants are starting to pick up the pace on their growing efforts, and a strong gust of wind or heavy downpour can quickly damage the stems that carry heavily scented flowers. Avoid this by securing supports every 4in with garden twine.

Sow seeds of winter pansies in trays, cover with vermiculite and place in an unheated propagator. Wait until autumn before planting them out in their final flowering position to enjoy bags of colour later in the year.

Any newly planted trees and shrubs should be watered regularly this month.

Feeding Time!

Feed Fuchsias, Petunias, and any other flowering plants with a fertiliser once a week to boost flowering. Start feeding when you notice buds forming on the plants and continue until the plants run out of steam in early autumn. Have you given our Blooming Fast Superior Soluble Fertiliser a go yet? Now is the perfect time to! Otherwise use a high potash liquid tomato feed.

Give tuberous Begonias a boost by removing female flower buds to allow the plant to put all its energy into producing attractive male flowers. Female flowers are easily recognisable, as the blooms are single, smaller, and less showy.

Beautiful Blooms in Baskets

Hanging baskets are such important features of the spring to summer garden.

Keep your hanging baskets in the best condition possible by watering them two or three times a week and feeding them regularly.

While paying attention to your baskets, take a look at the existing blooms, deadheading any that are faded or starting to fade to leave space for potential fresh growth.

If you have fallen behind slightly on your plans for the year and haven’t had chance to put together a beautiful hanging basket display, why not purchase one of our pre-planted baskets? All the work is done for your by the time they arrive at your door, with vibrant flowers already mixed and matched to complement one-another and planted into a tough and durable hanging basket, ready to hang up, water, and enjoy. It really couldn’t be easier!

Moving into the Kitchen Garden…

There are so many drawing outcomes from gardening, and June wouldn’t be complete without a trip to the kitchen garden…

Veggies

If you’re growing tomato plants this year, consider dotting a few French Marigolds around them. These strongly scented flowers will help to deter pesky insects from the plants.

For rhubarb, cut out the central flowering stems to allow the plants to carry on producing juicy stems for as long as possible. This will also ensure a great crop the following year.

Stop cutting stems of asparagus and feed plants with a general-purpose fertiliser to boost next year’s crop.

Pinch out the tops of runner beans when they reach the top of their supports to encourage the side-shoots to grow.

Carrots are magnets to carrot fly, a pernicious pest whose maggots make holes in the developing vegetable, which can lead to rot. To ensure your crop is not wiped out, cover it with a sheet of fine woven mesh netting.

For the best aubergines, cut off side shoots and remove any remaining flowers after five fruits have formed.

Feed cucumbers, chilli peppers, sweet peppers and aubergines twice a week with high potash fertiliser, as the fruits start to swell.

Fruit

Don’t allow black, red, or white currants to dry out during warm weather or your crop will be spoilt. Water every seven days, depending on the weather. Water potted plants before the compost dries out.

Tidy up early fruiting strawberries. After you have picked the last fruit, cut back foliage to about 2in, exposing fresh leaves. Give plants a boost with a general-purpose fertiliser.

Apple crops can be ruined by codling moth caterpillars tunnelling through the fruit. Reduce damage by hanging pheromone traps in trees to lure away male moths.

Protect fruit bushes from birds by covering them with netting.

And Please Don’t Forget…

Don’t let weeds spoil your gardening plans this June. Handpick any annual weeds such as hairy bittercress, groundsel and chickweed before the problem gets out of hand. Use a Dutch hoe if borders are heavily infested with problem plants.

Keep the surface of ponds clean by removing floating weeds. Scoop out tiny-leaved duckweed with a net, and twirl hair-like blanket weed from the surface with a stick or cane. Leave this debris on the pond edge overnight so any creatures intertwined can escape, before adding to the compost heap.