- The main stems of container-grown aubergines, chillies and sweet peppers should be given a means of support now. Short canes are perfect for the job and the upright stems can be tied to them with soft twine. To avoid accidental eye injuries, the cane tips should be covered with a piece of cork or a camera-film canister.

- Peonies are magnificent herbaceous cottage-garden plants: my favourites are ‘Rubra Plena’, which has ruffled and double crimson-pink flowers, and the garnet, golden-centred, cup-shaped flowers of ‘Crimson Globe’. Both can reach a height of up to 30in, with a similar-sized spread, and need a moist but welldrained soil in sun or partial shade. Once the display is over, deadhead the spent flowers of these clump-forming plants - take each one back to a leaf held just below the flower. The attractive deeply cut and mid-green leaves should be left on the plants and allowed to die back naturally.

- Strawberries send out long, thin, ground-hugging stems (runners) at this time of year, and these can be used to propagate new specimens. Start by sinking 3in-diameter pots filled with John Innes No 1 compost into the ground near the original plants, so the rims are just above soil level. Where a young plantlet is growing on one of these stems, place it over the centre of a pot and anchor the base onto the compost surface with a small wire hoop - nip off the stem beyond the plantlet. Once you have done this for all the pots, remove any stems that are not being used for propagation purposes so the plants do not waste valuable energy on them. After 6-8 weeks, roots will have formed in the compost, creating new plants; these should be severed from the parent plants and placed in a cold frame for planting outside a week later

- The slim, green-white stems of salad (spring) onions such as ‘White Lisbon’ make a mild-tasting alternative to bulb onions and are easy to grow from seed sown now. Choose a fertile, moisture-retentive but welldrained soil in full sun and lightly scatter the seeds in ½in-deep drills. Once the seedlings emerge, they do not have to be thinned, although regular watering is essential in dry spells. Harvest when they are about the thickness of a pencil and 6in-8in tall.

- Certain hardy and deciduous shrubs, including philadelphus (mock orange) and deutzia, benefit from a haircut in early to midsummer. For each shrub, wait until the flowering display has ended, then remove one or two of the oldest stems to ground level (or young shoots lower down each one), as this encourages the production of vigorous and healthy new growth. Wayward stems can be pruned back to keep them in check. Afterwards, give the plants a feed and top up any moisture-retaining mulches.

- Dandelions can be a real nuisance in the lawn, and their low rosette of leaves means they are rarely damaged by the lawnmower’s blades. For this reason, persistent and troublesome plants should be dug up with a hand fork or a special dandelion weeder - always unearth the deep tap roots as well as the leafy growth. If you are short of time, it’s worth pulling off any flowers whenever they are noticed, as this temporarily prevents the weeds from producing their fluffy white seed heads and spreading all around the garden.

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