June is one of the best gardening months for scent. The air shimmers with fragrance, each fresh and unfurling bud brims with it and there's nothing quite like the smell of a newly mown lawn for that sense of promised summer.
Philadelphus or 'mock orange' throws out arching sprays of white starry flowers and this teamed up with daphnes and deutzias provide some of the strongest fragrances of the gardening year, not to forget roses. Old roses, such as the Gallica roses, Charles de Mills, or the Damask roses, such as Rosa Tuscany Superb, have rich aromas and are simply covered in lush flowers throughout June.
If you're someone who likes leaving an aromatic trail behind them, try brushing past the mexican orange blossom, Choisya ternata, a tangy spicy scent; or rosemary and lavender for that high sweet note of summer. Most of these make fabulous cut flowers for indoors, or you could try a jug of lilacs for their honey fragrance.
Now is the time to tie in and train climbers, such as clematis and roses as they put on vigorous spurts of growth. Prune spring flowering shrubs such as forsythia, spirea and kerria japonica now following flowering, so that they have time to grow fresh shoots through the summer which will then flower next spring.
Tie in and train climbers, such as clematis and roses as they put on vigerous spurts of growth. Prune spring flowering shrubs such as forsythia and kerria japonica now following flowering, so that they have time to grow fresh shoots through the summer which will then flower next spring.
The same applies to spring flowering clematis such as Nelly Moser. These need a third of their old growth removed to reinvigorate them, cutting down to the base.
Harvest your herbs for freezing and drying and feed pot plants, using a nutrient dense fertilizer such as tomato liquid feed. June is also the month of aphids, so do spray them off, preferably using a non pesticide spay such as fairy liquid and water. You'll only need a small drop of soap.
Above all, on those hot summer day, put up your feet and enjoy the garden. Don't do anything else!
