• Try to make a small water haven for wildlife, using any large container. This can attract beneficial insects, frogs and toads, which clear up pests like aphids and slugs for you.
• Get the children interested in gardening, it will fill in those long school holidays.
• Weed regularly.
• If the weather is dry be prepared to water vulnerable plants.
  
• Ventilate the greenhouse and apply shade paint if necessary. Damp down if the weather is hot
• On holiday with no-one to water your plants? Fill the bottom of a big black refuse sack with compost. Pack your plants, in their pots into it, wet compost thoroughly, then use pea sticks to form a frame and cover with horticultural fleece. Plants will stay moist for a few days at least and the fleece lets them breathe while keeping some moisture in.

Lawns

• Progressively lower the mower blade.
• Trim your lawn at least once a week to keep it neat and dense.
  
• Trim lawn edges each time you mow.
  
• Treat weeds individually with a spot weeder or dig them out with an old knife.
  
• Remove any coarse grasses by hand.

Containers

• It is essential to keep all container plants well watered
  
• Tidy summer containers. Remove fading flowers regularly.
• Feed container-grown shrubs and perennials

Annuals and biennials

• Spider mites love hot dry weather and are very active currently on many plants. They feed on the underside of leaves and can been seen with an unaided eye. Spider mite damage is called stippling and looks like tiny yellow dots on the leaves, in severe infestations the entire leaf may look yellow. Control them with by spraying the plants daily with a hose or apply insecticidal soap.
• Thrips feed on flower buds and opened flowers which causes them to turn brown. Check the underside of leaves for their presence, it will look dirty and silvery. Control with insecticide.
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Perennials

• Pick fresh flowers for indoors. This will also encourage more blooms on most perennials.

Roses

• Spray bush and climbing roses with fungicide and insecticide mix.
• Dead head regularly to encourage flowering.
• Smelling a rose is proven to cause a chemical change that will enlighten your mood, make this a daily routine!

• Look and enjoy!

Vegetables

• Pinching out the sideshoots on your tomato plants is a good way to propagate them. If you pull the side shoots off the plant when they are about 10cm (4in) long, and plant them in moist soil, they will usually root and produce extra plants for free.
• Spring cabbages should be sown into a stale seedbed.
• Lettuces can still be sown. Your last summer crop until winter varieties mature.
• Save seed from your broad and runner beans.
• Harvest the last but one courgette from each plant, growing the last as a marrow.
• Lift and store mature onions
  

Herbs

• Pinching back herbs to stop flowering will keep the best flavour in the leaves and encourage branching.