Hope is not lost on tired plots!

This bank holiday weekend is usually one of my favourite times in the gardening year; it’s always a time to get really busy. It involves a lot of cutting back and tidying-up, but also buying a few plants that will keep the garden bright and colourful through to the first frosts (remember them?).

But this year is obviously a bit different. The scorching dry weather has meant it’s been a tough gardening summer, and now we have hosepipe bans to contend with, too. My own garden was looking wonderful in June, but many of the flowers were over the top quickly, and my tidying session actually happened a couple of weeks back.

The browning stems of finished perennials weren’t an inspiring sight! That said, there are still things we can do right now to pep up our plots, no matter how tired they may feel. Take a look at our feature on page 16 where we’ve got some great ideas for projects you can tackle this weekend.

Also in this issue, our kitchen gardener Rob Smith explains how to deal with blight on your crops (page 22). It’s well worth reading, as blight can sometimes ruin all our hard work.

Speaking of problems that suddenly appear and become major garden issues, box plants can be the bane of our lives when things go wrong. This week our resident agony uncle Stefan Buczacki is on hand to assist a reader whose box is looking less than healthy (page 44) and has some alternative plants to try that might be less problematic.

I’m off to do a rain dance!

Have a great gardening week.