Here’s hoping that the summer of 2025 will be brighter and warmer than the weather we experienced last year in early summer. There’s lots to do to get your garden looking colourful for the warmer months ahead. Veg and fruit are also developing well and you can enjoy the first harvests of many crops.
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Gardening maintenance for June
Watering
In dry spells, make sure you thoroughly water anything that’s been planted in the past couple of months as it will still be growing roots into the surrounding soil. A good drench is better than a regular light sprinkling. Patio pots and hanging baskets will need watering at least once a day, more in hot weather.
Try one of the best watering cans or the best garden hose pipes from our tests.
Make good compost
Now the garden is full of growth and the lawn is being cut regularly, there will be plenty of material available for composting.
Make sure that you fill your compost bin with an equal volume of nitrogen-rich material (grass clippings, manure, shrub prunings) and carbon-rich material (flower stalks, shredded paper, woody clippings).Keep your compost bin moist. The contents should hold together, but not drip water, when you squeeze a handful.If you want compost fast, the secret for success is to turn the contents of your bin once a week. When we trialled this, we made well-rotted compost in 10 weeks. When you add grass clippings to the heap, add a shovelful of soil, too. This sped up the composting process in our trial.
Head straight to our reviews of the best compost bins.
Hoe weeds on dry days
Kill weeds by cutting through them with a hoe, but wait for a dry day to do it so that they dry out and die quickly. It’s worth doing even on soil that seems to be weed free as it will help to disturb any tiny weed seedlings.
Read our expert guide to buying weed suppressing membranes
Look after your lawn
The warmer weather should see grass growing strongly.
Cut the grass once a week as many mowers struggle with longer grass. Read our lawn mower reviews if you’re thinking of replacing your mower.Apply a lawn feed at the frequency advised on the packaging.For a quick tidy up, just trim the lawn edges to get things looking crisp and neat.
Jump straight to our best grass trimmers.
Start trimming hedges
Keep box, hornbeam privet, leylandii and beech hedges looking neat by trimming the new growth with hedge shears or a hedge trimmer. Before you start to cut, always check the hedge for active birds’ nests first as it’s an offence under the Wildlife & Countryside Act 1981 to disturb them. If you find an active nest, leave the hedge uncut until they finish using it. The hedge won’t suffer as a result.
Read our reviews of the best hedge trimmers.
Grow-your-own-veg jobs for JuneHarvest early potatoes
Early varieties of potatoes will be ready to dig up in late June. Wait until the leaves start to turn yellow and then feel under the ground to check how large the tubers are, then lift your early potatoes as and when you need them. Don’t be in too much of a rush, as you’ll get bigger tubers the longer you wait. Second-early potato varieties will follow in July and maincrop varieties can stay in the ground until September to have time to get big.
Find out how to grow potatoes
Thin fruit
The natural June drop will see many small fruitlets fall from your trees, but for the best-size fruits it’s worth checking to see if you need to thin more of them (remove excess fruit).
Thin apples to one fruit per cluster: for dessert apple varieties, thin to 10-15cm between clusters; and for cooking varieties, thin to 15-23cm between clusters.
Pears should be reduced to two fruits per cluster, with clusters 10-15cm apart.Plums should be thinned to 5-8cm apart.Peaches should be thinned to 20-25cm apart.Nectarines should be thinned to 15cm apart.
Remove tomato sideshoots
Tomatoes are growing strongly and plants grown as cordons on one stem will need to have the side-shoots (which grow between the main stem and the leaf) removed regularly to channel the plant’s energy into flowering and making fruit. Once you see the first truss of fruit forming, it’s time to start feeding too.
Discover the best tomato feeds from the Which? Gardening magazine tests
Follow on from early crops
Keep your veg garden productive with new veg to crop later on – sow carrots to follow early lettuce, kale to follow early beetroot and swedes to follow pea shoots. You don’t have to wait until the early crops are gone as you can plant or sow in the gaps between their rows.
Plant tender veg
Tender veg, such as runner beans, sweetcorn and courgettes, can be planted outdoors now that the danger of frost has passed. Keep them well watered during dry spells as they put down new roots into the ground.
Prune soft fruit
You need to prune several soft fruits now to ensure you get bumper crops.
Gooseberries For plants grown as bushes, cut back the current season’s growth to five leaves, except for branches needed to enlarge the plant. For plants grown as cordons, cut all side-shoots back to five leaves, and once your plant has reached the top of the support, cut back the tip to five leaves from last year’s growth.
Discover how to grow fruit
Plants-and-flowers jobs for June
Get your patio ready for summer
If you haven’t done so already, move patio pots and baskets outdoors. Most plants enjoy a sunny position, although begonia, impatiens and fuchsias don’t mind some shade. Water them once a day or more often during hot weather.
There’s still time to plant pots and baskets. Use a Best Buy compost for containers and mix in some Best Buy controlled-release feed.
Check out the best varieties of fuchsias
Dead head roses
June is traditionally the month when roses are at their peak.
Snap off just below the head – this is thought to make new blooms appear more quickly than the classic method of cutting just above a leaf.
Read more about how to grow roses
Plant biennials
Biennials, such as honesty, wallflowers and sweet rocket, are sown in spring to flower the following year. You can either move young plants to a nursery bed in a quiet spot outdoors for moving again in the autumn or put them in their flowering positions. You’ll find plants at the local garden centre or via online retailers.
Find out which are the best places to buy plants online