JUNE IN THE GARDEN
Sally's Garden in June

The garden featured this month is, as you can see, a little unruly! An awful lot of the planting is by self seeding giving a wonderful display of Foxgloves, Poppies, Sisyrinchium and Wild Verbascum (Mullein). As a result, one is never quite sure what is going to pop up where, but the surprise is half of the pleasure!

This is the month when most of the gruelling preparation is finished. You can look over your borders with satisfaction at the planting and flowering of your very personal arrangements.  Remember to keep all newly planted perennials and bedding plants well watered. This sounds a joke as I write this looking over our water-logged garden which is gently steaming now the rain has ceased for a while. Despite staking the borders a lot of the taller flowers have keeled over with some even pulling out of the soil.  These will need re-staking and firming into the ground. Keep dead heading flowers as and when necessary.

This is the time to sow biennials for planting out in their final position in the autumn, unless already done. I treat lupins as biennials and throw out the plants once they get big and woody. Canterbury bells look lovely so they are a nice plant to grow. Sow more seed of anything that has succumbed to slugs and snails.I have just sown more cucumbers, basil and coriander as some snails got into the green house.

The hanging baskets can all go out now. The bedding plants too. Tomatoes and cucurbits can be planted outside. Why don’t you make a visit to the garden centre and see what is being sold off cheaply? They won’t want to keep bedding and basket plants much longer as they will have outgrown their pots or trays.

In the vegetable garden the runner and ground beans can be planted outside. Sow more salad crops, new fresh leaves are tastier than tough ones. At the end of the month the first early potatoes can be lifted. Not all at once but as needed.  June is strawberry time. Also time to put straw under the plants and netting over them. Do look out for the blackbirds getting caught in or under the net. Free them wearing leather gloves,
I often resort to cutting the net to release them. June is time to thin out the fruit on apples, plums and pears. Wait until after nature has shed some of the fruit for you though. Cherries have been thinned by the wind and rain already.

The long grass can be cut down at the end of the month. June the first is traditionally the day to trim your box but only small ornamental trees or low hedges. No hedge cutting until end of July to allow all the birds to complete the nesting and fledging. Do leave some nettles for the butterflies in a corner along with some dead wood for beetles don’t be too tidy.
Most importantly sit in the garden and enjoy it! 

A glimpse of Judy & David Pollitt's fabulous garden irises.

click on pic to see larger version