This is usually and unless you have planned carefully it can also be a moment when the garden starts to look a bit tired and lacking in flowers. However, this is easy to remedy, and such as dahlias, sunflowers, crocosmia and cannas step up now, while gardens planted in a subtropical style are reaching their height. is hugely productive this month, and added to the outdoor bounty is the beginnings of the luxurious greenhouse harvest: tomatoes, aubergines and peppers are beginning to ripen.
With kids on summer holidays, this is (again, usually) the time that a great many gardens get their most use all year, and come into their own as a place for playing, sunbathing, footballing, splashing about in paddling pools and barbecuing. Invite people into your garden this month while the days are still long and the living is easy, and show off all that you have achieved. Now that lavender plants have finished flowering it is time to give them a bit of a tidy up.
Cut off the spent flowers and then use a pair of shears to lightly trim the plant all over. It is important not to cut back into hard wood, as lavenders often fail to grow back from this, but a light trim will stimulate growth further down the plant, keep the plant looking bushy and full, and help to prolong its life. You can trim large and straggly lavenders but they are very hard to rejuvenate once past a certain point.
They are fairly short-lived plants and you may do better to dig up and start again with a fresh young plant..