June is a busy and beautiful time in the garden, and a few simple jobs now can keep it looking its best throughout summer. From supporting plants and feeding containers to sowing biennials for next year, here are my top three tips for your June garden.
Support your plants
First up, supporting your plants. With the recent hot weather, many perennial plants are growing really quickly, which is fantastic. But if you get a day where there's lots of rain, or it's really windy, they're more likely to flop over.
Putting in stakes and plant supports now means your perennials will grow around them, giving you a more natural display later in the summer.
While you're at it, don't forget about your climbing and rambling roses too. These have put on lots of fresh new growth in recent weeks, so now's a good time to tie them to a support. Then when the blooms start to come out, they won't get heavy and flop over. Using something like soft twine works really well as it won't damage the plant and will help guide new growth, creating fuller and more beautiful displays.
Feed Summer containers
Let's talk summer containers. Whether you've got hanging baskets, patio pots or even window boxes, they're working really hard right now and all of that flowering and growth is taking up vital nutrients. So giving them a weekly liquid feed using something like Westland's Boost, or even a tomato feed, is going to encourage more flowers and colour.
And while you're at it, don't forget to pick off (deadhead) any flowers that have gone over to keep those blooms blooming.
Watch my video for more info on using plant feeds.
Sow biennials
June is a fantastic time to start sowing biennials like Foxgloves, Honesty and Wallflowers in seed trays. Biennials grow their leaves in the first year and then flower in the second year. So sowing these now will help them to establish and put on some growth ahead of flowering next year. This is a lovely job to help you get ahead with your future garden.
I've been busy sowing foxgloves this June. They're fantastic for pollinators and will self-seed year on year, so you get even more plants for your money.
Sow your biennial seeds in trays of fine, multi-purpose peat-free compost. Sow them lightly and remember to keep them nice and moist. Find a spot for them outside somewhere nice and bright, but away from direct scorching sun.
Once they've grown into strong little plants, transplant them out into your garden where they'll establish through autumn and winter and then be ready to flower as beautiful foxgloves next year.
Thanks for reading.
