This is the JUNE installment of Horticulture Week's month-by-month guide to essential maintenance and management tasks for parks, gardens and grounds maintenance staff.
Office
- Update pesticide records
- Update sowing records
- Organise holiday cover as needed
General
- Control weeds, pests and diseases
- Water as necessary
- Top up mulches
Trees, shrubs and hedges
- De-sucker roses
- Remove fading flowers from roses, rhododendrons, camellias and lilacs
- Cut back straggly lilacs
- Finish pruning spring-flowering shrubs
- Prune philadelphus, weigiela and deutzia as they finish flowering
- Continue taking softwood cuttings
Beds and borders
- Cut back and tidy spring-flowering perennials
- Deadhead faded flowers
- Continue staking as needed
- Fill in gaps
- Plant out summer bedding and water regularly
- Thin out hardy annual seedlings sown in situ
- Take cuttings of dianthus
- Sow hardy herbaceous perennials and biennials
- Sow polyanthus and pansies for winter/spring colour
- Tidy hellebores, collecting and sowing seed
Wall plants
- Continue training
- Prune Clematis montana if not already completed
- Propagate suitable subjects by layering
Bulbs
- Cut foliage of bulbs that have flowered in grass areas
- Lift and divide bulbs as they finish flowering
- Plant cannas and lilies
Containers
- Plant up with half-hardy annuals
- Display hanging baskets
- Water regularly
Greenhouses and conservatories
- Shade, damp down and water regularly
- Pot on cuttings, young plants and seedlings as required
Water features
- Inspect regularly for algae bloom and treat accordingly
- Top up as necessary
*Jobs should only be undertaken when ground and weather conditions are suitable and will vary according to location and may vary significantly from year to year. And remember that while the year nicely divides into 12 months, activities often overlap.
