Can it be July already? With such a late spring, time seems to be galloping on. Take the time this month to do a bit of garden visiting – the national garden schemes are a wonderful day out, particularly when a whole village takes part.

It is lovely to saunter around someone else’s garden and get ideas on planting partners – and hopefully a lovely bit of homemade cake! Check out www.ngs.org.uk to see where is available in your local area.

Have a quick tidy

Mind you, spare a thought for the owners of the gardens. Imagine all the work they have to do to prepare for visitors! I was thinking about this the other day and asked myself, if I had 20 minutes to do some tasks to tidy up my garden before visitors arrived, what would I do?

I would plump for weeding the front 10cm of the border, leaving bare earth, cutting the grass and trimming the edges. Obviously, some of you have more garden than me and this would take an hour or two, but it is the equivalent of a quick vacuum up and spraying polish around in the house. It really looks more than the time it takes, and you can ignore the back of the border, especially at this time of year when it is probably full to bursting with luxurious growth – unless you have the time, of course.

Prune bay trees

You may have problems with your bay trees having yellowed, distorted and curled leaves at the tips – this is caused by bay suckers, which are sap-feeding insects and very prevalent at this time of year. Prune off affected stems to keep it under control and remove the leaf litter from around the base of the bay. I wouldn’t spray with anything, as you will want to use the leaves in cooking.

Now is a good time to prune early summer flowering shrubs like Deutzia, Wiegela, Rubus and Philadelphus, as they have finished flowering. Pruning will encourage new shoots to spring up from the base, and if you cut out about one in three of the thickest old branches at the bottom, these new ones will take their place and ensure the flowering doesn’t decrease.

As with all shrubs when you’ve pruned, lightly fork in some pelleted chicken manure or balanced fertiliser, such as Growmore, around the base. Water well and mulch with some compost or well-rotted manure to give the plant a real boost. Don’t touch the stems with the mulch or they could start to rot.

Enjoy your garden

Most importantly, enjoy your garden this summer. You spend all year working hard, so remember to make time to put your feet up and marvel at what you’ve achieved.