Rounding up the garden maintenance jobs for July you need to look after your lawns. They will need some water if it is very dry and a final feed when the ground is damp after a shower. If it is very dry then don’t forget to set your lawn mower blades a little higher so you don’t scalp your lawn.

On the subject of water – this is the time of year to really monitor your water features, especially if you have fish or wildlife in and round them. Duckweed and suchlike need to be regularly removed and any floating dead foliage should be swept off the top of the water. Aquatic plants need to be kept pruned and tidied to keep them healthy. I have to clean out my pond this year and pass some of my much loved fish onto a friend with a bigger pond – they have grown too large for mine. I shall miss them.

When you do any work on your ponds and water features do make sure that frogs and toads can easily get in and out – they are among your best friends when it comes to slug control. Be careful if you must spray with chemicals that there is no drift onto your pond and that you take care of the bees and other helpful insects like ladybirds

July is a month to watch out for the dreaded Lily Beetle amongst other pests. The scarlet lily beetles look quite spectacular until you see the damage they can do. It caused me immense grief last year to have to dispose of all my lilies which had become infested almost overnight. They were all pot grown so it didn’t do too much damage to the garden as a whole but it was heartbreaking none the less. Sawfly can also attack shrubs such as Berberis and also gooseberries. Do watch out for slugs on damp evenings, it isn’t so much the big ones that you need to worry about as the pesky little ones that lurk under the soil!

The dry weather in July often leads to an upsurge in the ant population which can invade your home as well as your garden so keep an eye open for them and treat accordingly. It also encourages some of the more powdery types of mildew on honeysuckle and roses amongst other. Regular watering of your tomatoes will help prevent blossom end rot and ensure a good crop so it is worth taking a few minutes every day to keep them moist.

Ripening fruits are a magnet for birds so you need to net them – and protect your brassicas and peas from marauding pigeons, they will nip the shoots out of a whole row in seconds.

Greenhouses are especially prone to pests at this time of year so sticky traps are well worth putting out to monitor the health of the green house. You also need to make sure your ventilate your greenhouse well, providing shade if necessary and damping it down when required.

House plants can often suffer in the summer – I like to place mine outside on nice days when it’s not too hot, maybe even leaving them for a day or two especially if there are light showers forecast. The plants seem to thrive on that and it freshens and cleans the leaves giving them a healthy look when they come back indoors.

Once you have the vegetable garden under control it’s time to look at the more decorative aspects of your garden – the flowers and trees.  One of the things I love doing is pruning – sometimes I can be a little over enthusiastic, but generally most things will benefit from a good ‘haircut’ as my Dad would have said.

Hedges need regular clipping – especially if they are fast growing varieties and you will need to trim any shaped hedges or elaborate topiary pieces in the garden too so that they look their best.  Wisteria is something that grows well around here and that will need any excess growth taking off if you want it to be at its best next year, as will your deciduous magnolias.  One job that you mustn’t neglect either is to cut out any shoots on your variegated shrubs that have reverted back to single colour.  I used to have a running battle with a fuchsia which had self seeded – but it throws flowers in two distinct colours representing each of it’s parents, in this case the fuchsia won and I just let it do it’s own thing now.

It’s important to apply regular feeds to your containers plant and any summer bedding if you have them.  Dead-heading is also an ongoing task to keep everything looking good.  One job I will be doing this week is dividing up my Irises now that they have finished flowering.  I have some that are almost black and I want to use them as an accent colour in a couple of place in the garden.  Whilst I am planting those I shall probably also plant my crocus – they can wait a little if need be.

The kitchen garden is one of my favourite places at this time of year – there is so much going on that it hardly seems like garden maintenance, more like a journey of discovery.  You never know quite what is going to be ready to harvest and what culinary delights you can come up with!

Soft fruits are at their best so there are lots to harvest, currants, raspberries (my personal favourite) and gooseberries.  You need to think about cutting back side shoots on gooseberries and all varieties of currant, and don’t forget to remove the fruited stems from your summer raspberries either.  Strawberry beds need to be tidied up once they have finished fruiting and it is a good idea to thin out apples if you don’t want the tree to struggle.

July is one of the best times of year for regularly fresh veg from the garden too, and by regular cropping you will keep everything going, particularly courgettes, peas and bean.  Plenty of water is essential too, even a couple of dry days can make a difference, especially if it is as windy as it has been here.   This is probably as late as you can leave it for the last sowing of runner beans.  My tomatoes have not done so well this year but it is finally time to remove the shoots from the cordon grown ones so that the four trusses develop well.

In terms of sowing, it is time to turn your thoughts to the autumn and winter vegetables with sowings of spring cabbage carrots, winter brassicas, leeks, spinach and Chinese leaves in their many forms.  I’m going to try some winter salads this year and see how they go.  You should never rest on your laurels where your kitchen garden is concerned – always think a few months ahead and make sure you have a constant stream of harvestable crops coming through.

April is definitely a month to be doing things with your Fruit and Vegetables.  We have had some very sharp frosts still so you need to protect the blossom of your stoned fruit trees such as Apricots, Peaches and Nectarines.  Whilst on the subject of fruit trees don’t forget to prune your Cherry and Plum trees once the leaf buds have cracked open.

You can start planting your Potatoes – remembering again to protect any early shoots from frost.  If you didn’t plant Asparagus last month that can go in along with root crops like Carrots, Turnips and Kohlrabi.  Salad crops such as  Spring Onions, Swiss Chard, Lettuce as well as Brassicas can be started now too.  I like to get some herbs such as Basil and Chives going to.  You will need to protect early sowings with fleece and/or polythene if you are still getting frosts.

In the greenhouse I am busy with Peppers, Aubergines (one of my favourites!) and Cucumbers – potting on your Tomatoes can be done as well.   I’m just beginning to increase the amount of ventilation in the greenhouse now that the days are warmer but do remember to close up at night or you could lose a lot.  I shall be doing some softwood cuttings from my beloved Fuschias as well as repotting and feeding some of the house plants.  My Orchids are doing particularly well at the moment and I am extremely pleased with the way they are responding to almost total neglect!

Sometimes when using a weed killer  it can unintentionally get on to plants you don’t want to get rid of.  Occasionally when spraying a wind will carry the spray onto other plants and it won’t be until sometime later that the damage appears.  The first thing you should to do is wash it off with plenty of running water – a hosepipe is best.  The faster you do this the better the chance of your plant surviving.  You will know if you have this type of damage as leaves will become smaller, narrowed and probably  twisted.

Once this damage is spotted there is little that can be done other than to remove the damaged parts of the plant and trust that more damage will not become apparent over the next few days.  Sometimes a plant will recuperate if it has only had a scant amount of weed killer sprayed on it.  The amount of damage really does depend on how much weed killer it was exposed to and how strong the plant is.  Some plants are a great deal more susceptible than others and only a small amount will be enough to kill the plant.

You should always take great care if you must use chemical weed killers to make sure that none of it drifts to vulnerable areas.  Try to only use chemicals of this type when there is little or no wind and use a spray that will direct the liquid exactly where it is needed with little risk of overspray.  It is also sensible to have special containers for each spray that you use in the garden as residual weed killer left in a container that you might use for other things could kill your plants.

Chemical weed killers should really only be used in extreme circumstances, hand weeding before they take hold is the best defence.  If you do hand weed, remember not to put them in your compost if they are flowering or seeding as it is unlikely that a domestic compost heap will get hot enough to kill off the seeds and you could end up spreading them all over your garden again.

I have a problem in my garden, and not a very nice one at that – Slugs. It has taken me years to get them under some sort of control. The previous owners of our house were not gardeners at all and pests ran rife which left us quite a legacy of hard work to bring them under control. The worst of the pests without doubt were the slugs. Now I realise it is perfectly possible to grow slug resistant plants but I don’t like being dictated to – and my husband loves Hostas – the result of that combination was all out war on slugs.

Some people like to use chemicals in their garden, and that is their choice, but I don’t if it can be avoided so traditional slug pellets were not an option. They also wreak havoc with birds and hedgehogs so they were out. We did, and still do, occasionally use the organic, bird and hedgehog friendly slug pellets but they are not always easy to get hold of, so we had to use other methods. I have a friend who is even more paranoid about slugs than I am but I haven’t resorted to her method of control yet.  At dead of night she dons a Miner’s helmet, puts on rubber gloves, grabs a bucket full of water and a large pair of tongs and sallies forth into the garden where unsuspecting slugs are grabbed by the tongs and dumped into the water to drown.

My favourite method of control does involve liquid and drowning but I go about it a slightly different way. I use ‘slug pubs’. A small amount of good beer is put into plastic containers which are spread around the garden especially near the vulnerable plants. Next morning they are generally full of dead drunk slugs. But my method doesn’t end there. The contents of the containers are emptied into a large drum which is kept topped up with water, creating a ‘slug soup’. I use the liquid from this drum to water the plants that slugs like to munch on most – and it seems to work! It’s almost as if the slugs smell or sense what is there and keep away. It even helps with the little blighters that hide in the soil and munch on the plants before they make it to the surface.

For the Hostas I also save all the pistachio nut shells we can get our hands on and put those as a mulch around the base of the plants. The sharp, salty shells keep all but the most determined of the slugs away and we have had a lovely display of Hostas for a few years now using this method.

There is a part of me that feels very mean drowning the slugs this way as I don’t like to kill any creature unnecessarily but when you see all your precious vegetables disappear overnight…. at least they die happy!

The last few garden maintenance jobs that must be done in March are fairly obvious but bear mentioning none the less. Lawns need to be looked at as they are starting to grow again and time can usefully be spent raking to remove thatch and moss before starting to mow. When you do start to mow, make sure the blades are set quite high for the first few cuts and rake off any cuttings if you don’t catch them in a box or bag on your mower. You should also look to see if any areas need some care by way of reseeding or turfing and prepare the ground accordingly.

It’s a good time to check over your Pond as well, check over all the pond ‘electricals’ like pumps, lighting systems and filters. Give any other water features a quick check too. I generally put some barley straw pads on the top of my pond at this time as well just to prevent any algae getting hold in the spring sunshine.

Just as a word to the wise, it’s a good time to clean your patios and paved areas. My husband nearly took a tumble yesterday when going to fill up the bird feeders. Some of the paving stones had developed quite a slippery surface and had become dangerous.

If it’s too cold to be outside there are jobs to be done indoors or in the Greenhouse. Some houseplants might need to be repotted. Overwintered plants such as pelargoniums, fuschias and other tender perennials will need to be cut back and it’s a good time to plant your begonia tubers in pots. Don’t forget that March sun can sometimes be very warm in the greenhouse and you may need some ventilation but do remember to close up at night as it is still very cold.

Nasty Pests and Diseases can start to rear their ugly heads in March and it is a wise gardener who is vigilant at this time of year and builds this into her garden maintenance schedule. You need to keep the garden tidy and start removing all the rubbish that has accumulated over the winter to stop diseases developing unseen. Dead leaves should be removed from perennials as part of your regular maintenance. When you are inspecting your plants and seedlings watch out for any symptoms of damping off as well. The temperature variations at this time of year can have a dramatic effect on how things develop.

This is the time of year when those dratted slugs and snails start to appear as well. I am plagued by slugs in my garden and I have to keep a constant watch. One of the most successful ways I have found of protecting my Hostas, which are particularly susceptible, is to put a mulch of Pistachio Nut Shells around them. Believe me, slugs and snails don’t get past that! You should also be watching out for aphids, which start to make their appearance with the Spring sunshine.

If you grow stoned fruits, such as Peaches and Nectarines make sure you keep them protected from March winds to prevent Peach Leaf Curl. Whilst in the fruit garden you should also be spraying for Gooseberry mildew and pear scab.

On a more pleasant front this is a good time to sow a wildflower ‘meadow’ even if only a small one, for all the butterflies and other beneficial insects it will attract. You should see a hungry Ladybird making a meal of aphids! As I said before it’s also the time to think about Nest Boxes for the birds and do make sure you keep your Bird Bath and ponds topped up. I had a wonderful ‘Tea Break’ this morning watching two Blackbirds having a bath in my pond. We have an area where the birds can easily get down to the water on some flat stones and these two were having such fun – it was a joy to watch and they pirouetted and preened. Maybe if I’m lucky they will nest in the garden and that will put paid to a few slugs as well! Watching things like that makes all the effort of garden maintenance well worth it!

Continuing our garden maintenance theme now that Spring is in the air and the garden is crying out for colour, it’s time to turn your attention to ensuring that you get  your hardy annuals going by sowing them either in pots, trays or modules.  Sweet Peas can be started off too, I generally nick the seed coating to give them a start or soak them for a few hours to soften that hard outer shell.  Whilst you are busy sowing you should also start off your Summer bedding plants if you are intending to grow them from seed.  If you are going to sow in the early part of March then put them in a heated propagator or sow under glass to give them some protection from the frosts you can still get – we had an incredibly hard frost yesterday morning.

It also time to topdress your containers with some fresh compost and maybe put some fertilisers on the bulbs that are beginning to peep through now.  I also like to try and get a mulch onto some of the borders before the weeds start springing up.  I shall be using some of the material that we shredded last year when chopping down some trees, it has broken down quite well and is ready for use now.

Talking of trees it’s time to check any shrubs and trees planted last autumn and firm them in.  It’s also time for one of my favourite jobs – pruning.  I’m a great believer in hard pruning to get a plant to be the way you want it to be.  My definition of a weed is any plant that isn’t where you want it or doesn’t do what you want so I wield the secateurs with some ferocity.  At this time of year I will be looking over my summer flowering shrubs and late flowering clematis amongst other things such as climbers which have run riot over the year.  I won’t be touching my spring flowering shrubs til after they have finished flowering but they too will get a serious hair cut in due course.

I’m not a great fan of evergreens and conifers but if you do have them in your garden this is the time when you should look to move any that need a change of scenery as part of your garden maintenance plan.