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

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This month, our gardens begin to react to the lengthening days, with flowering daffodils and fat buds of blossom on the best flowering trees preparing to erupt. Most trees should be pruned in winter, but cherries, plums and damsons are best trimmed in summer to prevent silver leaf disease. The Countryside Classroom offers a complete series of ready to go lesson plans for teachers looking to run gardening clubs in KS1 and KS2, including powerpoints.

Some perennials, such as sedums, will benefit from being divided every few years to keep the clump growing vigorously. Feed oriental hellebores June is a glorious month in the garden, with more lush growth than at any other time of the year and any new flowerbed ideas will begin to take centre stage. Achieve a luscious garden all year round with this best-selling, easy-to-follow guide for novice gardeners from BBC Gardener's World writer Ian Spence.The best advice is remove any infected growth that you find. Ashwood Nurseries, which specialises in hellebores among other plants, recommends cutting off all the foliage, diseased or not, to help stop the new season's growth becoming infected with the fungus. It will also stop the leaves obscuring the flowers are they emerge.

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. Water cacti and any succulent garden ideas when the compost is dry. Place citrus trees, cymbidiums and other houseplants outdoors for a summer holidayPumpkins and squash should be raised off the ground to ripen in the sun before harvesting. If the weather is wet, cut them early and bring them in to ripen in a greenhouse or sunny windowsill. To cure the fruits for storage, keep them in a warm room for a fortnight, then put them somewhere dry and cool but frost-free. 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.