Gardening Tips for June 2025

Last year at this time I was moaning on about too much rain, this year (at the time of writing) we have had barely 20 mm since the start of March so things are beginning to look a bit parched. So, with the weather’s vagaries and vicissitudes to consider, do we go for a prairie garden and hope not to do any watering or continue with the bog garden and assume normal rainfall will resume anytime soon? Anyone’s guess so perhaps just continue with what you like doing best in the garden and manage the best you can. Coming into the summer season, one can always down tools and enjoy what you have already got and resume the graft in the autumn.

The kitchen garden

You can’t leave the kitchen garden alone though, June sees the start of the season of plenty, sometimes referred to as a watershed month (i.e. the rainy start to the school holidays) signalling the end of spring and the start of summer. The fruit and veg you have been nurturing has now started repaying you and it's time to reap your rewards, but remember to keep up the due diligence in weeding, watering, replanting and garden pest control in an effort to make the giving season last for as long as possible.

Jobs to keep you going in the kitchen garden this month include harvesting the new-season early potatoes, peas, broad beans, onions and fruit such as strawberries, gooseberries and cherries (with the latter, the skill is to pick them before the blackbirds which is not as easy as you think, outwitting a blackbird with its eye on your cherry takes planning especially as blackbirds appear to prefer slightly under-ripe fruit.) I prefer not to use nets, as much as I would like the cherries for my own consumption trapping blackbirds in netting isn’t really an eco-friendly solution especially if you are a blackbird so stake out your cherry tree and pick the cherries before the blackbirds get them, it is just a matter of timing and a feeling of triumph if you beat them to it.

Tomatoes

The garden centres are full of expensive tomato plants, if you haven’t got your own plants started from seed or you can’t persuade any likeminded gardener to give you some, buying looks like the last remaining option. Note to self for next year, buy some packets of seeds in the autumn sales and plant out next February/March, this way you have an almost limitless choice of varieties, it isn’t mandatory to plant Moneymaker, Gardener’s Delight, Ailsa Craig or Tumbling Tom, all garden centre staples but they are good choices if you are not feeling too adventurous.

The flower garden

Time to get the bedding plants out now the risk of frost has gone for the summer. With the good weather we had in April and May it was tempting to plant out early, this year hopefully any early planters have got away with very few cool nights.

Due to the dry weather so far this year, Rhododendrons and Azaleas will need a watering to ensure they can develop flower buds for next year.

Garden centres always have a huge choice so choose what you fancy and if you are new to gardening the easiest way to buy the correct plants for your garden is to ask the staff in the planteria (garden centre speak for outside); ask for a flowering plant for dry shade, that should keep them on their toes.

Water garden

Have you refreshed the water in your pond recently? Now is a good time to replace some of the water and to clean the pond filters if you have them. Stored rainwater is better for a pond with ornamental fish and other wildlife, so having a water butt is a useful accompaniment to a fishpond.

Lawns

The lawns have already had a hard time this year will little water since the start of March, so the general advice is to leave the lawn alone to manage itself over the summer and watch it come back to life in the autumn when /if it starts raining again.

Keep gardening. Richard Haigh