June is peak time in a traditional English mixed border, with roses, mock orange, irises, peonies, geraniums and lime-green Alchemilla flourishing. Glorious. But all that romance depends on past planting and planning; it’s too late too conjure it up from nowhere. But what you can do now is to give borders a shot in the arm to keep them bright for the rest of the season.

It’s amazing what a mixture of new planting and a little housekeeping can do.

There is nothing like a few crisp lines to set off floppy planting, so sharpen up the hedge behind and if there are clipped shapes anywhere in the border — balls of box or Lonicera nitida — trim them. Trim the edge of the lawn, too, to make the place look loved.

If there are climbers in the border — clematis at the back or a passion flower on the fence — give them the once-over, tucking trailing stems into positions where they can spread happily without smothering other plants.

If the border is looking too flat, think about putting in a tripod where there is a gap, and plant late-flowering clematis on it, or black-eyed Susans, or morning glories. Use scarlet runner beans if you prefer, so long as you can get in there to pick them.

Weed, weed, weed. I don’t mean taking out just the buttercups, ground elder and goose-grass (cleavers, as we say in the Dales) but all the early wildling flowers that by now make a muddle and maybe even a mildewed muddle: self-sown forget-me-nots and herb robert. If you can clear a few gaps, there will be spaces to plant and room for the remaining plants to show their shape and structure.

In the same way there are perennials that have flowered and can be cut down now — flower stalks, leaves, the lot — to make a clumps of fresh foliage: aquilegias, lungworts, fancy comfreys. Instead of sprawling shabbily they will help to make light and space for fresher flowers.

Without being neurotic about it, you can never do too much dead-heading, not just because it takes away all those sad remains but also because it encourages more flowers to follow. Work your way through roses, penstemon, Argyranthemums, perennial wallflowers and Osteospermums, and snip the old heads off lilacs and peonies.

Even in June you can add perennials to give colour, but keep them well watered for a few weeks. Penstemons, pot-grown dahlias and fuchsias will flower better, and you can bed out Gazanias and Isotoma for non-stop display. Large containers of ivy-leaved geraniums can be stood on upturned pots or buckets hidden in the planting to produce a higher burst of colour.

Bold, colourful foliage never goes amiss. The large-leaved varieties of coleus (Solenostemon), splashed and streaked with red, gold and green, will rise to 60cm (2ft), and for the front of a border there are always happy Heucheras in purple and peach. The fashionable purple-leaved millet ‘Purple Baron’ always catches the attention.

Grey-leaved Plectranthus and Helichrysum can be set to sprawl through new planting and large potfuls of upright grasses such as miscanthus will still make a good pillar of foliage and late flower if they are planted in rich soil.

If there are any gaps after all this, buy a packet of trailing nasturtium seed to bind the whole thing together, with autumn oranges, yellows and reds.

Weeder’s digest
God made roses whose spent petals fall off. Man bred fancy ones where they stay on the bush, brown and horrible. Take charge: dead-head them. Finger and thumb for the individual flowers, secateurs for whole clusters, cutting back to the first decent bud. Why not plant a philadelphus near by? The two scents are pure summer.

As the last flowers on spikes of bearded irises fade, cut out flower stems at the base.

Brooms (Cytisus scoparius, kewensis, etc) are plants of wild open spaces where poor soil, wind and animals keep them compact. In good soil they grow too well and eventually fall over. Prune them now, taking back last year’s green growth by about half. Take small bundles of the shoots in one hand and cut them through with secateurs. They may look chopped but in a couple of weeks it won’t show at all. And don’t feed them.

Clematis stems can wander, so peel them back and set them on the intended path. Not just the large-flowered hybrids, which are in bloom now and in the autumn, but also the earlier, smaller- flowered Clematis alpina and macropetala.

What to do with grass clippings apart from composting them? Spread a 4in (10cm) mulch around bamboos two or three times a season to feed them and retain moisture. Thicker layers heat up, which is not good for the plant.

Scrape the dried-on grass clippings from the underside of the cutting deck of rotary mowers; it makes picking up the clippings far more efficient.

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