Let’s love our June gardens

And suddenly, here we are: June! The beginning of summer, the month of the longest day and hopefully some lovely warm temperatures to let us fully enjoy our gardens. Those long evenings sitting outside are among the things we look forward to throughout winter, after all! Hopefully your garden is starting to come into its own. As I look outside now I can see lots of flowers: calendula, foxgloves, geum, lavender... but the promise of still so much to come. Lots of wildflower seeds, scattered freely in spring, have grown up and should soon be blooming away merrily. In this issue we look at different ways to really make your garden sparkle at this time of year. One is to maximise those shady areas – most of us have them, after all. On page 18 we bring you the best woodland gems that don’t need full sun, including astrantias, hostas and (again!) foxgloves.

On page 22 we’re focusing on that very important but often overlooked part of the garden – the lawn. Particularly at this time of year, when we might have visitors to our gardens, it’s great to have a lawn in really tip-top condition. That said, it can often be a very involved process, so we look at the easiest ways to get your grass looking gorgeous.

One thing I noticed this year at the Chelsea Flower Show was a trend to really pack as many plants as possible into a plot. One way to do this is to introduce flowers to the veg patch, to create a wonderful potager look (and help to keep pests away) – on page 24 we show you how. Have a great gardening week.