RHS Gardening Through The Year: Month-by-month Planning Instructions and Inspiration

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Discover top tips to guide you with clear, easy-to-follow gardening advice and illustrated step-by-step projects and gardening ideas. This fully updated edition includes brand-new visual galleries that showcase a garden throughout the year, with inspirational ideas for achieving colour schemes, your favourite scent, or striking foliage in your garden. Mow the lawn before the weather gets too wet and cold, re-seed bare sections or re-turf. It's also a good time to aerate a lawn by using a garden fork as waterlogging can be common over winter. Spend some time repairing bald patches of lawn by following our tips on how to plant grass seed. Keep the soil moist while the seed germinates. If you have a lawn, now is the time to show it some TLC with some autumn lawn care. Rake it thoroughly with a wire rake to remove the moss and thatch and then spike it to aerate the soil and improve drainage. A sprinkling of phosphate feed wouldn’t go amiss either.

Deadheading flowers and plants as soon as they start to fade will encourage more blooms. Always keep your secateurs clean and sharp to avoid damaging plant stems and spreading disease. After flowering, prune climbing and rambling roses and tie in stems securely to prevent any breakages in extreme weather. Collect seed heads from the garden. The best time to do this is when the seed heads or pods have ripened and are dry and brittle. Gather them on a dry day, ideally after a rain-free spell, as they need to be completely dry when stored or they will go moldy. Get organized now with your planting and you will be rewarded for your hard work throughout the summer!The next three months are the busiest in the productive garden, for sowing and planting, and there’s nothing more summery than harvesting your veg and cut flowers! If the grass begins to grow, you can mow the lawn in mild weather. Put the mower blade on the highest setting so you don’t scalp the grass. If you're learning how to grow potatoes, earth them up regularly as the foliage grows, keeping any tubers well covered. Now the weather is warmer, slugs and snails are about. Follow our tips for how to get rid of slugs and go on a torch-lit hunt so you can protect vulnerable young plants.

Keep all your plants, containers and home grown fruit and vegetables watered well, especially if it’s hot. The best time to water is in the early morning. Aim the garden hose at the roots of the plants not the leaves. As leaves begin to fall, regularly sweep up and don't leave them on grass. Put the leaves to good use by learning how to make leaf mold, which once well rotted, can be used as compost or a mulch.This is the time of year when the garden gets busy! As the risk of frost subsides, bedding plants are ready to bring instant color to the garden, while everything seems to rapidly grow as the weather warms up. Sow biennials for next year such as wallflowers, honesty, foxgloves, Sweet Williams, forget-me-nots and Canterbury bells. If there is a dry spell, water garden planters and make sure they are lifted off the ground so they don't get waterlogged during winter. Water cacti and any succulent garden ideas when the compost is dry. Place citrus trees, cymbidiums and other houseplants outdoors for a summer holiday This month is one of the busiest in the monthly gardening calendar so follow our simple steps to keep your plot looking good this month.