June tends to see a spurt in growth across the garden, so July is a month to maintain the progress that nature has kick-started.

Summer flowers like sweet peas and dahlias are now giving a profusion of colour, and scent if you’ve got the right sweet peas, keep dead-heading them to prolong the flowering. Equally cutting flowers for indoors will also stimulate more flower bud formation.  The sweet pea pyramids planted up in May are now looking good and producing some lovely cut flowers for the house

Sweet pea pyramids

Sweet peas

If you have maples in pots, especially the dissected leaf forms, keep them sheltered from hot sun and keep them well watered to avoid leaf scorch.

To prepare for the autumn, July is the perfect month to plant Colchicums and autumn flowering crocuses. They should be planted in well drained soil immediately after purchase to ensure that the bulbs do not become desiccated. They do best in a sheltered spot, but one that does get some sunshine, in deep shade the flower spikes can be quite spindly.

As most nestlings will have now fledged, it is a good time to tidy up hedges without any risk of disturbing nesting birds. While caring for birds, top up bird baths to make sure that there is water easily available. While you are thinking about tiding up hedges have a look at any variegated shrubs and prune out any stems that are reverting to the normal green leaf colour. These are much more robust than the variegated stems and will soon start to dominate if left untended.

July is a great month in the kitchen garden. Strawberries and raspberries are at their peak, early potatoes can be dug as and when you need them, fresh peas are lucky to make it as far as the kitchen and the first beans, courgettes and tomatoes should all be ready.

You’ll still need to monitor for pests, aphids are around all summer and if you grow brassicas, the cabbage white season is now upon us. If you can, the best way to protect your brassicas is to net them using a fine mesh to prevent the butterflies from laying their eggs on your plants in the first place. However, closely you watch your plants it is often the damage from the caterpillars that is the first sign that will be noticed rather than the eggs. The RHS advice page may put you off entirely, but hopefully this picture will show that it is possible to keep your cabbages healthy.

Kalibos Cabbages

July is also the time to plant cold stored “second cropping” potatoes these can give you new potatoes for Christmas.