After months of planting, feeding and tending, July and August should be the time to enjoy your garden. Of course if the weather is dry there will be watering to do, if the weeds grow they will have to come out and if the grass grows it will have to be cut.

In the vegetable garden there is still time to sow late beet, radish, lettuce and spring onions. Spring cabbage, purple sprouting broccoli and leeks can still be planted. As onions near maturity ripening is helped by bending the stalks over. Tomatoes must be regularly watered and so too should marrows and courgettes. Runner beans should also be regularly sprayed with water.

Bedding plants should be fed regularly with Miracle-Gro or Phostrogen and watered as necessary. Hanging baskets and containers should never be allowed to dry out and Surfinia petunias need regular watering. Dead flower heads should be removed as often as possible from hanging baskets, bedding plants and roses. Roses should also be regularly sprayed against black spot and mildew.

If you are going away on holiday its a good idea to get a friend to water your hanging baskets and pot plants. For a modest outlay it is possible to install automatic watering such as the Gardena Micro-Drip irrigation system which is electronically controlled to water your plants as necessary. Whilst on holiday do take time to have a look at some of the marvellous gardens open to the public. Here in Chipperfield four gardens will be open on 13 July – at Burford House, Mahogany Hall, Lamington House and Doggetts. On 20 July the garden at The Barn, Stoney Lane, Bovingdon is open. Hampton Court Flower Show from 8 – 13 July is well worth a visit and further afield the Tratton Park Flower Show is open from 23 – 27 July. There is a special garden day at Chenies Manor on 20 July, attended by some excellent nurserymen and horticultural specialists.

Busy Lizzies, antirrhinums, geraniums and petunias should be looking good now and fuchsias should be flowering well. Climbing plants now in flower include clematis, honeysuckle and of course the climbing roses. July is the month for the early buddleias, lavatera, potentilla and spiraea and in the borders astilbes, campanulas, monarda, red-hot pokers and evening primroses should be a mass of colour. Terry Simmonds