YOUR PRUNING MONTH
It’s now time to deadhead blooms, prune stone fruits and fan-train plums, says Frances Tophill
It’s the height of summer. The days are at their longest, which means we have plenty of time to enjoy the garden, especially now that long-day response plants are being triggered into flowering. People often talk about a June flower gap – after the spring flowers have finished and before the late-summer blooms come into their own. As a rule, and if in doubt, pruning is usually best done immediately after flowering, so in the June gap there will be a few plants to cut back.
We are now also completely free from the risk of frost and the sap has finished rising, so the likelihood of the plant bleeding is negligible. Stone fruits that cannot be cut in winter are now safe to prune, as the warm, drier weather makes infection from fungal diseases such as silver leaf far less likely.