Gardeners' notes - jobs to do in July

Cut flowers for a vase

By this point in the year flowers such as sweet peas, lilies, zinnias, gladioli and pinks will be hitting their stride, providing plenty of material to cut and enjoy indoors as well as in the garden.

Flowers are best picked early, avoiding the heat of the day.  Cut a long stem, strip the lower leaves and plunge straight into a bucket of cold water for a while before re-cutting the stems and arranging them into their vase. You can seal sappy stems by dipping them quickly into boiling water, while woody stems do well if you make a vertical split up through the base.  Hollow stems prefer slightly warm water, which helps them take it up more efficiently.

Divide bearded irises

Once they’ve finished flowering, bearded irises can be divided to reinvigorate the plant and give a strong display next year.  Cut back old flower stems and lift the rhizomes; use a knife to carefully divide into small sections, ensuring there are plenty of leaves on each piece.

Replant them in the ground or into pots with the rhizome exposed.  It’s a good idea to trim the leaves too – more will soon regrow as the plant finds its feet again, ready for next year’s display.

Thin apples

If you want to improve the size and quality of your apples, this is a good point in the season to reduce the number of fruit per cluster to one or two, leaving the best-formed fruit to grow on.

Apple trees often naturally shed immature fruit themselves, and may have already done so in the past month or so, but some manual thinning can ensure a crop of good-sized, delicious apples, and is good for the future health of the tree too.