Hello June

June is one of our absolute favourite months here at Hope Valley Garden Centre. We're bursting at the seams with colour, and it's also the time when all your hard work from the start of the year begins to pay off. 
With the much needed rain behind us, we hope you will have plenty of time to enjoy your garden and catch up on those long-awaited gardening tasks.
Here's to a vibrant and rewarding gardening season!

General Garden Maintenance 

• A great time to sow new lawns with grass seed. – remembering to water well.
• Feed the lawn with a suitable lawn fertiliser.
• Lower the blades of lawn mowers.
• Plant out container grown trees and shrubs - remembering to water well if there is a lack of rain.
• Cut back climbing plants that look straggly.
• Turn over and refill compost heaps to help composting process.
• Apply bark mulches around newly planted or established trees & shrubs to retain moisture and help suppress weeks.
• Look out for Greenfly and blackfly developing on shrubs, perennials (mainly Lupins) and roses, spray with a suitable pesticide.
• Pick off dead flowering heads of rhododendrons and azaleas.
• Remove “suckers” from standard roses, ornamental and fruit trees with secateurs.

In the Allotment or Vegetable Patch

• Check for signs of woolly aphid on fruit trees.
• Protect Strawberries from birds by covering them with netting.
• Hang Pheromone traps and Bird Feeders in Apple and Plum trees to control pests.
• Water Strawberries and Gooseberries to help fruits to swell.
• Stop cutting Asparagus by the end of June to allow the “ferns” to form.
• Feed fruit trees and bushes with liquid sulphate of potash, such as a tomato feed. 
• Feed Tomato plants every time you water with a suitable fertiliser.

In the Greenhouse

• Paint greenhouse glazing to help with keeping temperatures down and reduce scorching to foliage.
• Water tomatoes regularly to help prevent fruit splitting.
• Try hanging sticky traps over plants to catch any whitefly. 
• Important to water growbags and pots regularly, sometimes daily if needed in very warm weather. 
• Take out side shoots of developing Tomato plants 
• Liquid feed any planted up hanging baskets.
• Place pots of marigolds (you will find them with the bedding plants) near greenhouse doors to deter whitefly.
• If going on holiday this month, set up a watering area using a growbag tray and some capillary matting.