Your monthly gardening checklists

  • Flowers

    • Collect seeds as they ripen, from plants such as aquilegias, sweet peas and love-in-a-mist, choosing a dry day
    • Deadhead dahlias and other perennials to encourage a constant display of blooms
    • Keep camellias and rhododendrons well watered through late summer while their flower buds are forming
    • Trim lavender once flowering is over to maintain a compact, bushy shape, but avoid cutting into old wood
    • Prune rambling roses, removing up to a third of stems that have flowered, and tie the rest to supports
    • Keep pots and hanging baskets flowering by watering and deadheading regularly, and add tomato feed fortnightly
    • Take cuttings of woody herbs, including lavender and hyssop, choosing non-flowering shoots
    • Sow hardy annuals in sunny spots to provide early summer colour next year
    • Set up an automatic watering system for pots and hanging baskets if you’re going away on holiday – in the case of a hosepipe ban, drip or trickle irrigation systems are usually exempt, check your local water board for restrictions
    • Strim or mow areas of wildflower meadow, now that the plants have scattered their seeds
    • Take softwood cuttings from penstemons, choosing healthy, vigorous, non-flowering shoots
    • Remove any spent hardy annuals if you don’t want them to self-seed
    • Plant autumn bulbs, such as colchicums, sternbergia and nerines, in pots and borders

    Fruit and veg

    • Be vigilant for signs of tomato and potato blight, removing affected plants immediately to prevent spread
    • Summer prune both free-standing and trained apple trees, to encourage good fruiting in future years
    • Plant well-rooted strawberry runners into new beds
    • Pinch out the tops of outdoor tomatoes, as further flowers are unlikely to produce fruits that have time to ripen
    • Order saffron crocus bulbs (Crocus sativus) to plant in September, so you can harvest your own saffron this autumn
    • Use netting or fleece to protect blackberries and autumn raspberries from birds
    • Lift onions and shallots once their tops die down, then leave to dry in the sun
    • Cut back leaves on grapevines to let the sun ripen the fruits
    • Sow hardy crops such as land cress, rocket and corn salad for winter pickings
    • Harvest fresh herbs to freeze in ice cubes for winter use, or to hang up and dry then store in jars
    • Plant a kiwi plant, to climb over a trellis, fence or arbour
    • Water crops regularly, especially during hot weather, use water from a water butt if possible. In periods of drought, there may be a hosepipe ban so water your crops with a watering can
    • Plant blueberry bushes into acid soil

    Greenhouse

    • Set up a capillary matting system to ensure plants have enough water if you’re going away on holiday
    • Plant cold-stored potato tubers in large tubs in a greenhouse or cool porch, for harvesting at Christmas
    • Pouring water over the greenhouse floor every morning during hot weather can help to increase humidity – during periods of drought try to use grey water to help reduce mains water use
    • Plant up pots with ‘Paper White’ narcissus bulbs for fragrant indoor displays this Christmas
    • Remove the lower leaves of cordon tomatoes up to the lowest truss, to let more light and air reach the fruits
    • Take leaf cuttings from succulents, such as echeverias, crassula and sedums
    • Start watering dormant cyclamen to bring them back into growth after their summer rest
    • Plant flowering bulbs, such as nerines, lachenalia and veltheimia in pots indoors, for autumn and winter colour
    • Look out for pests and diseases on greenhouse plants, and treat any you find immediately
    • Harvest tomatoes, cucumbers and chillies regularly to encourage more fruits to form
    • Tackle vine weevil infestations by watering pots with a solution of biological control nematodes
    • Shade delicate plants in the greenhouse to avoid sun scorch on hot days
    • Take leaf cuttings from houseplants, including begonias, African violets and Cape primroses