THE GARDEN

Most gardens can boast several rose bushes, although the separate rose bed that contained nothing else is becoming a thing of the past. Nowadays roses are more often used to provide beautiful colour and perfume in a mixed shrub and perennial border. Roses aren't always bushes. In my garden, tall varieties go at the back of the border and shorter varieties at the front. They make a great show alongside the long-term foliage interest of photinia and euonymus and the relative short flowering display of mock orange and hebe.

Most of us are happy to grow older varieties that are often more susceptible to rose diseases, even though spraying is necessary to keep mildew and blackspot under control. With modern rose treatments such as RoseClear 3 or RoseClear Gun! sprays every fortnight are sufficient to keep diseases under control and because they contain an insecticide too, pests such as greenfly are controlled at the same time.

Hanging baskets and patio pots will need watering regularly as plants become bigger. To ensure your display goes on for months don't forget to pick off the dead flower heads on a regular basis and to feed with Miracle-Gro Water-Soluble Plant Food every week. To make the job a quick 15 minute treatment fit the Miracle-Gro Feeder to the end of your hose and let the nifty little machine dissolve the crystals automatically and make feeding as easy as watering.

If it becomes necessary to water plants growing in the garden then give newly planted shrubs and perennials priority and see that they get a good drink occasionally rather than little and often. In this way you will encourage deeper roots. Feeding your shrubs and annual flowers with Miracle-Gro Plant Food regularly will ensure they are well nourished, especially if you wet the foliage in the evening to provide almost instant nourishment through the leaves.

Snap off the dead flower heads of rhododendrons rhododendrons, azaleas so that the new shoots that will carry next year's blooms can develop unhindered. To grow strongly they also need feeding with a special plant food such as Miracle-Gro Ericaceous Plant Food. This will supply some sequestered iron to help ward off leaf yellowing, but if this problem is severe than water the roots with Sequestrene Plant Tonic which cures iron deficiency and helps these acid loving plants grow better.

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ON THE PATIO AND CONTAINERS

Regular watering and feeding are essential to keep hanging baskets and containers looking good. Find time to pick over your containers to remove dead flower heads. This will encourage more flowering. Take extra time deadheading fuchsias or they will produce seed pods the size of grapes using up plenty of plant energy in the process.

Similarly, don't be frightened of cutting back long trailing plant material that is showing bare flowerless patches. Some trailing petunias, bidens and nasturtiums are inclined to rampage but can be cut back quite hard without harming the plants.

Feed containers once a week with diluted Miracle-Gro Water Soluble Plant Food, either dissolving the crystals in a watering can or using the lazy gardeners way with a hose end feeder. You can treat a whole garden in just a few minutes with the Miracle-Gro Feeder. Just fit to the end of a hose and it automatically dissolves the fertilizer at the right rate and dispenses it through a fine rose or fast spray jet.

If you were smart enough to plant some containers or even a traditional Levington Gro-Bag with tomatoes at the beginning of summer your plants should now be producing their first fruits. Train into position if the plants are upright types and remove side shoots regularly. The hanging basket variety 'Tumbler' needs no such training and really is easy to grow. Ensure the crop is tasty by feeding with a high potash tomato feed such as Tomorite.

Look under the new leaves of tomatoes at the growing point of the plant to check if whitefly are gathering. Spray the pests with a bifenthrin based product such as BugClear Gun! , Polysect Ready To Use or a product that contains pyrethrins such as Nature's Answer Natural Pest Control. All the products mentioned can be used on tomatoes and allow listed crops to be sprayed and eaten on the same day.

Keep your patio surface free of weeds with a treatment of Pathclear or the ready-to-use Pathclear Gun!. This special weedkiller for paths and patio areas controls the weeds that are present and prevents the growth of germinating weed seeds for several months.

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FRUIT AND VEGETABLES

Keeping weeds under control at this time of the year will reduce competition and thereby provide a bigger and better crop, whatever you are growing. Regular hoeing between rows will help, although this does tend to bring new seeds to the surface and provide the local cats with a comfortable toilet area. If you want to avoid these two problems you can apply Weedol through a narrow sprinkle bar to kill the weeds between the rows or carefully spray the Weedol Gun!. Just ensure you wet only the weeds and not the crop.

Runner beans should be producing their first pickings in July. Keep them well watered and fed weekly with Miracle-Gro Plant Food. If the weather is hot, then flowers are less likely to set seed pods. To try to combat this tendency, apply a spray of plain water over the foliage every evening. Runner beans are very susceptible to blackfly attack. If these sap sucking pests are spotted use an insecticide recommended for use on food crops that lists beans amongst the crop that can be treated. First choice is BugClear or its ready to use equivalent BugClear Gun! an aphid killer that also controls caterpillars and whitefly on the fruit and vegetables that are listed on the label. As these are contact insecticides you will need to apply evenly to upper and lower surfaces of leaves to get full control.

In wet summer weather potatoes can be infected with a crippling disease called blight. It is capable of destroying the foliage and will eventually infect the tubers which will rot in store. Astute gardeners will spray their potato crops with Murphy Traditional Copper Fungicide in July as soon as any signs of the disease are noticed. Repeat the spray at fortnightly intervals if the weather is wet and blight symptoms of brown patches are seen on the leaves. Spraying will at least slow down the spread of the disease between plants.

In the fruit garden pick raspberries, loganberries, strawberries and blackcurrants as they ripen. If birds are getting to ripened fruit before you can protect them with netting. Frosts that occur at the flowering time of fruit trees will naturally restrict the amount of crop that is set. However there are years, like this one, when frosts have been few and far between in April and May. If your plum tree was lucky enough to escape frost damage, you may have a huge crop that will seriously threaten the strength of the branches. If this is the case thin the fruit crop or you could find branches are ripped from the trunk due to the sheer weight of the plum crop.

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IN THE GREENHOUSE AND CONSERVATORY

Provide maximum ventilation and damp down the floor twice a day to help cool the greenhouse. Removing a glazing pane opposite the door will provide a welcome through draft.

Tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers will need harvesting regularly to encourage further fruit set and a heavier crop. Watering daily may be required in good weather, especially if the crops are being grown in a Levington Gro-Bag. Add a good fertilizer such as Tomorite once a week to provide top quality tomatoes with a full flavour.

Watch out for pests, especially whitefly and treat as soon as they are seen. Replace the yellow plant traps hung in the greenhouse as soon as they are well covered with pests.

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THE LAWN

Feed you lawn regularly to achieve that wonderful deep green lushness that is a pleasure to walk on and a beautiful foil to the flowers and foliage of the rest of your garden.

A summer treatment with Evergreen Lawn Food or Scotts Lawn Builder is suitable even in summer. Both give long lasting results that encourage stronger and thicker turf. Apply all lawn fertilizers evenly and accurately, being careful not to overdose. Most people find that a wheeled lawn fertilizer spreader helps to give accurate results. Look out for special offers on the EverGreen Easy spreader or the Scotts EvenGreen drop spreader.

Continue to cut the lawn regularly and trim the edges to give a sharp look to the edges. Depending on rainfall in your locality you may need to water occasionally during the summer to keep the grass green. White clover and daisies are a common summer weed problem and treatment early in the summer will help to keep their spread under control. Verdone Extra is Britain's most popular liquid selective weedkiller. Just one treatment gives season-long control of most lawn weeds, even the difficult to control ones such as lesser trefoil and black meddick.. Try this concentrate if you have plenty of weeds and apply through a watering can or garden sprayer all over the lawn. If there are only a few weeds, spot treat them with the Verdone Spot Weeder.

In hot weather apply liquid selective weedkillers in the evening when the droplets stay on the leaves for some time before evaporating.

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ALWAYS READ THE LABEL. USE PESTICIDES SAFELY
BugClear™ and BugClear Gun!™ contain bifenthrin. FungusClear™ and FungusClear Gun!™ contain penconazole. RoundupGC, Roundup Ultra 3000, Roundup Tough Weedkiller Ready to Use and Tumbleweed Original Extra Strong Gel contain glyphosate. Roseclear® 2 contains bupirimate, pirimicarb and triforine. RoseClear® Gun!™ contains bifenthrin and flutriafol. SlugClear™ Mini Pellets contain metaldehyde. Spotless® contains carbendazim. Verdone® Extra contains fluroxypyr, clopyralid and MCPA. Weedol® contains diquat and paraquat. Weedol® Gun!™ contains diquat.

®, ™, Miracle-Gro, and Scotts are trade marks of The Scotts Company or its affiliates. Roundup is the registered Trade Mark of Monsanto Company.

GARDENING INFORMATION FROM The Scotts Company (UK) Limited

WRITTEN BY JOHN CLOWES

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