June Garden Tips

Thorngrove staff member Chris has provided lots of useful tip for your gardens this month!

Snip of dead rose heads and keep them sprayed for black spot.

• Start feeding and pinch out side shoots on your tomatoes
• Hoe borders regularly to keep weeds down
• Harvest lettuce, radish and other salads and dig up your early potatoes
• Plant out your summer bedding now the threat of frosts have gone
• Mow your lawns regularly
• Also place out your summer containers and baskets
• Stake tall and floppy shrubs
• Prune spring flower shrubs like forsythias
• If you want to grow your own next year such as wallflowers, pansies and bellis they need to be sown between May and July in order to flower next spring

Pests to keep an eye out for in June

Lily beetle, inspect your lilies for the scarlet beetle whose larvae can strip a plant in days, pick them off with your hands and crush them.

Vine weevil larvae are active so keep an eye on your containerised plants

Aphids multiply rapidly in summer, remove early infestation by hand to prevent the problem getting out of control.

Continue to protect little delphiniums, Hosta’s and other surceptible plants from slugs and snails.

Plant of the month

Astrantia (master worts) or Hatties pincushion hardy perennial.

Astrantia are clump forming herbaceous perennials with palmately lobed basal leaves and branched, erect wirey stems bearing compact umbrels of tiny flowers surrounded by a rosette of showy bracts.

They do well in light shade and also in full sun if soil is kept moist.

Astrantias also have a long flowering period from early summer to autumn.